ptumbian Edition 


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E ibistorical flDonograpb 




Class Jlj^iA 
BookjJjI't 




CHISVAI^IER ROBERT de la SAI,];:^. 




(COLUMBIAN EDITION.) 



The Picturesque Ohio. 



CI historical Olonograpl^ 



BY C. M. CLARK. 






CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS. 
NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 



■J)' 



/ 



(^s^ 



Copyrighted 

BY 

C. M. CLARK, 

1887. 



Putli^l)ers' Ir)broclucbior). 



FITLY celebrating the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the 
Discovery of America, it is but natural that each section 
of the Republic should hasten to record its contribution to 
the building of the Nation, and claim its share in the Nation's 
wealth and glory. Not harm, but only good, can come from a 
friendly emulation among the States; for while the Nation must 
ever be greater than any one of its component commonwealths, 
it is still true that the glory of the Nation is but the aggregate 
glory of all the States. The Nation is what the States have 
contributed to make it; and because we appreciate our common 
heritage of obligation and of privilege in the Nation, we have a 
laudable pride in what our own communities have done to make 
that heritage splendid. 

Of all the commonwealths, great empires in themselves, which 
have helped to make this Republic the marvel of history, none 
have more reason for honest pride and self-congratulation than 
those which lie in the fertile valley watered by the Ohio and its 
tributaries. Touching at their eastern entrance the western 
base of the Alleghanies, they caught the first influx of that im- 
migration which, as soon as independence was won and peace 
declared, burst through the mountain barriers, and poured its 
restless human tides into the great Mississippi Valley. If favor- 
able physical conditions have anything to do with making States, 
certainly they found such conditions, who halted their weather- 
stained immigrant wagons on the banks of the Muskingum or 

5 



6 PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 

Miami, on the rolling table-lands of Kentucky, or amid the 
trackless forests of Indiana. Here was soil which for ages had 
fed great forests, to receive its compensation when the generous 
boughs scattered their leaves under the touch of autumn frosts, 
until unlimited productiveness awaited the labor of the husband- 
man. Here were beautiful streams, which had never reflected 
the face of civilized man, waiting to give like reward to the 
genius and thrift of the manufacturer, while the broad, sweeping 
river and its tributaries afforded certain avenues of communi- 
cation and transportation. 

We call Columbus the discoverer of America, and celebrate 
his exploit with blare of trumpet and flutter of pennon. But 
would it not be truer to history to call the Genoese navigator a 
Discoverer rather than the Discoverer of America? In other 
wDrds, has not the real America had many discoverers, rather 
than one or two? 

What, after all, did Columbus discover? An island in the sea, 
a dissevered fragment, so insignificant that to-day we scarcely 
give it a thought. He died without a dream of the vast territory 
which his courage, and persistency, and faith had opened to 
civilization. 

What did Columbus know, or those who came after him for 
three hundred years, of what America held in store for men ? To 
Columbus his voyage meant simply larger scope for the old 
systems of oppression ; more gold for the coffers of kings ; more 
territory for the ambition of conquerors; more slaves for the 
service of aristocracy. Or, if we must grant him the possession 
of a religious impulse (which, in the light ot all testimony bear- 
ing upon his character, seems exceedingly doubtful), it was at 
best but a desire to extend the power of the tyrannous Roman 



PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCJION. 7 

hierarchy. To later discoverers remained the vision of an almost 
boundless continent, into whose exhaustless stores God had opened 
wide the door, inviting the oppressed of earth to broadest libert}^ 
to unparalleled prosperity, and to the building of a new civiliza- 
tion, whose corner-stone should be the freedom of the individual 
conscience. If our neighbors of Roman Cathohc faith simply 
vied with others, as citizens of a common country, heirs of a com- 
mon heritage, in extolling the liberties and glories of the Repub- 
Hc, all would welcome their enthusiasm. But we can not accept 
America at the hands of Rome. Only by its providential deliv- 
erance from Spanish domination has the vast territory of the 
United States and Canada escaped the fate of Mexico and the 
South American States. 

With this thought the publishers send forth this volume. We 
would not minify the greatness of the Discoverer, but we would 
magnify the courage and foresight and self-sacrifice of the DIS- 
COVERERS. If it required faith and courage and unbending 
strength of purpose in Columbus to go out over the trackless 
ocean toward unknown perils, it required no less courage and 
faith and strength of purpose in La Salle and Boone, and other 
explorers, to tread the dark forests, enduring exposure and fatigue 
and hunger, and in constant peril from savage beasts and not less 
savage men. If his discovery is worthy of grateful commemo- 
ration, theirs should not be forgotten. And so it seemed to us 
that we could make no more fitting contribution to this great 
anniversary than to send this beautiful volume, recording their 
deeds of courage and devotion, into thousands of Methodist 
homes. 

We can not forget what history records— that for two hun- 
dred years Catholic monarchs and popes struggled in vain for a 



8 PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 

foothold on the Atlantic Coast; and that they who did at last 
take possession of it, and laid the permanent foundations of the 
National life were not Romanists, but Protestants, driven by 
Romanist persecution from their European homes. Granting 
that the rocky headlands of the coast were first seen by eyes 
which adored the crucifix, ThK Nation was discovered by men 
every drop of whose blood cried out against Roman superstition 
and oppression, and who, with prophetic vision, read God's pur- 
poses of emancipation in the opening of the New World. As 
Methodists, we should be untrue to the memory of our fathers 
did we permit their part in the planting and building of the 
Nation to be forgotten. The path of the circuit-rider may be 
traced all over this great central valley of the continent. His 
deeds of self-sacrificing heroism are woven into the traditions 
of every communit}'. He swept like a herald of light from 
settlement to settlement. Where other ecclesiastical systems, 
with their formal methods of pastoral supply, were utterly 
inadequate, the Methodist itinerancy, with such generals as 
Francis Asbury and Wm. McKendree in command, was fully 
adequate. The preacher on horseback, with wardrobe and li- 
brary in the saddle-bags, always ready to move, waiting for 
no call except the all-inclusive call of God, was just the sort 
of man for that time. He came with the first settler, and ar- 
ranged to stay. He came with a genius for organization. His 
mission was not simply the evangelizing of dissevered com- 
munities. He helped to weld the scattered fragments into unity, 
and so to make possible the Nation. He stimulated the intel- 
lectual life of the people. He did not preach a faith which 
appealed to the ignorance and credulity of its adherents. He 
advocated the emancipation of the human intellect and will 



PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 9 

frpm every thrall of ignorance and superstition. Out of his 
saddle-bags came the first books that found their way into the 
remote cabins where citizenship was being formed. He was patron 
of school and press. It is significant that the very Conference, 
in 1784, which gave the Methodist Episcopal Church its formal 
organization, projected a college and pledged its support to higher 
education, and that among the first enterprises of the new eccle- 
siastical body was the founding of a house for the publication 
and dissemination of books. Out of Methodist academies and 
colleges and universities, scattered all over the valley of the 
Ohio, have come men and women, cultured in brain and heart, 
to adorn every walk of life and fill every position of trust, even 
to the highest in the Republic. Thus, from first to last, along the 
constantly lengthening lines of National life and power, has 
Methodism wrought for God and country. 

The publishing-house from which this book issues, is itself at 
once a product and an exponent of the intellectual life of Meth- 
odism in the valley of the Ohio. Started in 1820, simply as a 
depository for the distribution of Methodist publications, it has 
steadily increased its facilities to keep pace with growing de- 
mands, until its business engages a capital of over a million 
dollars, and during the past quadrennium there have dropped from 
its busy presses more than a billion and a half of printed pages. 

That this volume may stimulate Christian patriotism in ever}^ 
home to which it finds admittance, and in some measure help to 
bring this land of ours into the heritage which God reserves for 
it, and into which his truth alone can lead it, is our prayer. 

CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishing Agents. 
Cincinnati, November, 1892. 



eoNTE^T js. 



I^Grpt Hip si 
H I STO RICA Iv 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Where the River is Born," 21 



CHAPTER II. 
The Discoverer and the Discovery of the River, 33 

CHAPTER III. 
French and Engi^ish Contests for the Ohio, 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
EARI.Y Settlements, 63 

CHAPTER V. 
Indian Confi^icts on, and for the River, 103 



eoi^TEi^TS 



,<apf ©ecoria. 



IDEseRIF»1"IVE. 

PAGE. 

Afi^oat on the Deep, Shining River, 187 



«y^pper)<aix. 

Notes 231 

12 



IkUUST^^^TlOt^S. 



jfetpf E'lrst 

ARTISTS. PAGE. 

Frontispiece: Chevai^ier Robert de i^a 

SAI.LE, Crayon by S. J. Ferris, 

" Ives Process." 

A Sudden Darkness, \Vm. Hamilton Gibson, 17 

Eng. by Harley. 

'* Where the River is born," A. Cross, 21 

Eng. by Harley. 

" Lazii^y drop FROM Pool. TO Pool.," . . . . Rhoda Holmes Nicbols, 23 

Eng. by Harley. 

'' Chestnut Burrs," A. Cross, 26 

Eng. by Harley. 

" The Red Light the Proud Cardinai. 

Carries, A, Cross 27 

Eng. by Harley. 

"A Dragon-fi,y in Swift Fi^ight," E. T. Rockwell, ... 28 

Eng. by Harley. 

"A MEI.ANCHOI.Y Jay-bird TE1.1.S the Moving 

Story of her Woes," Fidilia Bridges, ... 29 

Eng. by Harley. 

** To be PUI.I.ED ASIDE AT THE REPRODUCTION 

OF THE M1RAC1.E Play of Spring," . . . H. F. Farny, .... 30 

Eng. by Harley. 

A Bend in the River, Miss Louise McLaughlin, 32 

Electro Tint Eng. Co. 

EARI.Y Days on " The Shining River," . • C. Harry Eaton, ... 52 

" Mosstype " Eng. Co. 

Three Hundred Feet up Bi^ackwater, • • Photo, 61 

" ]\Iosstvpe " Eng. Co. 
13 



14 ILL USTRA TIONS. 

ARTISTS. PAGE. 

**A Mountain Tarn," Photo, 91 

" Ives Process." 

Indians Fishing in the Ai^legheny, . .' . . H. F. Farny, 103 

" Ives Process." 

Spanning North Fork, Photo, . 145 

" Mosstype" Eng. Co. 

The Cherubs' Roost, Photo, . 161 

" Mosstype " Eng. Co. 

*'The Dun Deer that yet einger in the 

Mountains," H. F. Farny, 182 

" Ives Process." 



l^cipf ©ec®r)<a. 

ARTISTS. PAGE. 

Up Cheat River, Bryson Burroughs, . . 183 

" Ives Process." 

Fishing on the Kanawha, H. F. Farny, 189 

Looking up Eek Creek (Charleston, W. Va), Photo, 195 

" Ives Process." 

Bridge over the Ravine, Vogt, 210 

Eng. by Weisbrodt. 

PI.AN OF Cairo, 225 

Eng. for National Bank. 
View ON the Greenbrier, Burroughs, 230 



PART FIRST. 



THE 

HISTORICAL MONOGRAPH 

OF 

^be Beautiful IRivcr. 




"A SUDDEN DARKNESS SHROUDS THE CRESTED PEAKS "-Page 23 



@]^a{ilc,r L 







The Ohio River— mountain - born and valley - fed — gathers the 



22 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

little tributaries of its two formative and its southern affluents from 
the heights, uplands, ravines and valleys of the western watershed 
of that section of the Appalachian chain which links the broken 
spurs of the irregular Catskill to the frowning and rugged ridges of 
the southern Alleghany. 

The sources of these small streams are as varied as are the 
mountain silhouettes, or the ever-changeful skies above them. They 
are collected drop by drop in the rain-caverns of the highest peaks, 
in the slight depressions of the uplifted dells, in the rock-ribbed 
ravines that flank the crested summits, and from the crystal springs 
that issue through the ledges of the craggy cliffs. Upon the very 
topmost heights an occasional silvery line runs over the face of 
the battlemented steeps ; or a miniature flood leaps sheer into space, 
breaking in silvery drops as it falls into the dusky tarn beneath. 

The little wandering rivulets wind about in solitary threads of 
sinuous trace, until some obstacle of rock or tree brings their re- 
verted coils together ; then, as the volume of water increases, the 
brook hurries over slope and precipice to its outlet from the heights. 

Lower down the mountain-side, where the swelling ridges widen, 
the gathering of the waters begins. The brawling brooks fall together, 
singing of the cliffs they have left and the dangers they have passed. 
And now the chorus grows loud and full, for the arching forest 
aisles echo and re-echo the sound, as the foaming, glittering waves 
rush over the rocks down to where noise and glitter are lost in 
the stream that tranquilly glides through long, narrow stretches of 
emerald -tinted meadows. 

But the incoming of the watery tribute is not yet ended ; for 




WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN. 23 

through the outlying fields and 
orchards which cover the slopes 
3^ that fall from the thickly-wooded 
-^"€t^^'^^^ "^ hills, and over the shelving de- 

;;^% '^^1^ scent of the broken uplands, the slow- 
going little creeks lazily drop from pool 
to pool as the wrinkUng circles send their 
[pulsing currents 
tt j'l \ onward to the 
''meeting of 
the waters." 




24 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

When the broad-bosomed valleys of the rich lowlands are reached, 
the Ohio gathers its tributaries and goes on to join the Mississippi 
in its triumphant march to the Gulf. 

From their sources upon the giddy heights to where they are 
lost in their union with the valley streams, each one of the moun- 
tain rivulets which contributes to the Ohio perfectly fits into the 
wild and broken landscape it traverses. The characteristics of 
rivulet and sylvan landscape are distinctly defined ; yet, as counter- 
parts, they thoroughly harmonize. 

From where they issue beneath cleft and jutting spur of the 
cloud-touched ridges, beside tufts of hanging harebells that dot the 
bold escarpments, to where they come dancing over the edges of the 
mossy cliff's that brokenly terrace the wide stretches between the 
forest-crowned peaks, these rippling streamlets are piece and parcel 
of the wild scenery they serve to illustrate and relieve. They gurgle 
over rocky beds through dense forests which the morning sun never 
sees and which the westering sun hardly pierces with its long, 
shadowy, glimmering rays. In fertile, uplying glades they turn and 
return until their twisted curves encircle fairy-like bits of woodland 
scenery to which the noonday splendor of the high levels lends the 
glamour of enchantment. They wind beneath long vistas of over- 
arching trees, where the gnarled roots are covered with a carpet of 
tinted mosses in which tiny blue and purple flowers lie hidden. 
They linger where the waving plumes of flags and of the broad- 
bladed grasses border the water-line; and where the crimson-spotted 
trout skim along the shallows, or leap in flame-tinted flashes out 
of the depths of the still, shadowy pools. Their wavelets creep up 
the shelving banks to touch the starry-eyed flowers that look out 



IVMKRE THE RIVER IS BORN. 25 

from the gold-biuidered stretches of the narrow ui>land meadows, 
and they loiter, in changing circles, under the drooping branches of 
the sweet-scented mountain honeysuckle. If the year is young, and 
a pattering shower dimples the brook and hurries it over the broken 
rifts downward, it rushes in mad haste between the jagged boughs 
of the storm-twisted and flame-scarred trees of the rugged hillside ; 
whirling in noisy flight around the rough clearings, where the leaf- 
less skeletons of the wooded belt tell how fire was used to eke out 
the sharp strokes of the woodman's axe, down to where a sudden 
turn leads into some secluded valley, suggestive of the fox, the bear, 
and the dun deer that yet linger in the mountains, and of the stately 
sachem who once stalked these coverts. 

When the icy fetters of winter are fairly broken, when mountain- 
side and fell are brightened with the white-blossoming dogwood 
and the rose-hued thickets of the gay red-bud, when the slow- 
melting floods have reached the lower levels — then the swamp- 
willows take their first faint tinge of color ; the trailing arbutus 
puts on its pale-rose tint, and all the little sweet-scented things that 
sleep under the snow are blooming in the wood. The languor 
and perfume of spring is in the air, the May-apple blossoms hang 
under their tented leaves, and 

" Crowned daffodils are dight in green." 

When Spring has taken flight — with her train of delicate beauties 
— summer comes to the mountains, bringing warmth and richness 
of color into the wild life that the languorous spring only stirred 
into a half-awakened existence. 

In the hot months Nature scatters her shifts broadcast. Then 



26 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the heights are aglow with splendour. The firs are decked with an 
edging of prickly lace, the pines put on all their bravery of shining 

leaves and cone-coronets ; 
and while chestnut burrs 
are forming, the tints of 
the spring - clad forest- 
kings are deepened. In 
the sfln-lit glades where 
nutty treasures are be- 
ginning to ripen on the 
hazel and chincapin 
bushes, the laurel uplifts 
its showy, crimson-spot- 
ted clusters above the 
purple -flowered tufts of 
the wild geranium. The 
colour - changing, fringed 




1^ 



WHERE. THE RIVER IS BORN. 



27 



orchis dots the bank above the brook ; — while 
down below, the trout lazily rise to the thirsty 
fly that buzzes between sips to his shadow. 
In the shelving mountain-passes through 
which summer 
streamlets are slow- 
ly flowing, the 
flowers are all on 
show, — even to 
those little gad- 
abouts, the ground- 
ivy and the lace- 
vine (so named by 
the mountain folk) 
befurbelowed 
in gossamer. The 
walking- 
fern has 
crossed a 
tiny rill to 
see the red 
lights the 
proud car- 
dinal car- 
ries on the 
top of its 
tall stalks : 
while froir 




28 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

every coign e of vantage, of sunny bank or deep, shade-environed dell, 
the prickly branches 




of the wild eglantine 
pride, their wealth 
and blossoming 
on-fly in swift -^^ 
by a question of 
ment to an outlying 
tain's eastern slope — 
the wing, and then 
of a blushing rose 
larkspur, which 
ful stem from 
bour, as the 
what the thrush 
low-hammer 
birds fell m- 
twitter of. 

Hard 
gnarled 
a vine has woven a summer 




uplift, in stately 
of opening buds 
flowers. A drag- 
flight — called 
great pith and mo- 
glade on the moun- 
rests a second on 
alights on the face 
to watch the blue 
is waving its grace- 
neighbour to neigh- 
merry gossips tell 
whistled to the yel- 
when the mocking- 
to such a rollickmg 
laughter. 

by the bank, in a 
old tree around which 
screen, a melancholy 



WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN. 



29 



jay-bird tells the moving story of her woes to a sympathetic but hungry 
robin which has its near eye flooded with misty drops of pity and its 
off eye fixed on a fat worm it means to dine upon, when Mrs. Jay ends 
her story of the heartless woodpecker that kept up its horrible ham- 
mering on her house-tree until, 
between the frights and the 
falls of the nestlings in trying to 
see the monster, she lost the last 
of her promising brood. Before 
the story is ended, or the worm 
is caught, a sudden daikness 
shrouds the crested peaks. 




30 



THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 



A fierce wind comes shrieking up the pass scattering the water)' 
fragments of the storm-cloud it carries, as it rushes on leaving ruin 
in its track. 

The robin vanishes with the quick-coming storm. The jay's nest 
falls as the nestlings had fallen; and the melancholy little grass-widow 
is left to smooth her wet and ruffled feathers — all alone, in a homeless 
world. 

The larkspur and her merry neighbours are lying prone upon the 
ground, near a broken dragon-fly that is buried beneath the torn petals 
of a rose. The cardinal-flower has lost its red lights ; and the tiny 
rill — changed to a rain-laden rivulet — sweeps over the track of the 
walking-fern. The "lace-vine's gossamer furbelows" are torn into 
shreds, and the flower-covered bank is floating upon a muddy and 
swollen stream. 

But a cloudless night and the sun-kisses of a summer morning, 
will uplift the fallen and heal the wounded. Where the dead have 
gone down, there wall be an increase of life; but between loss and 
increase the fructifying winter must come: — a drop-curtain to be pulled 
aside at the reproduction of the miracle-play of Spring. 




Cy^PTK^ II. 

THE DISCOVERER AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER. 

VTTHE Discoverer of the Ohio, Robert Rene Cavelier, was 

-|- born November 22, 1643, ^t his father's country-seat, called 

lya Salle, hard b}^ the famous old city of Rouen, in Normandy. 

The Caveliers belonged to the Grande Bourgeoisie, that untitled 
class from which the nobility of France was recruited after the 
autocratic power of the great nobles was curbed by their enforced 
vassalage to the crown. The father and uncle of young Cave- 
lier were wealthy merchants, and some of the connection held 
places of trust and honor at Court. That his parents were people 
of good position in Rouen is evident from the education and 
breeding of the younger son, who at an early age was placed 
with the Jesuits, where his abilit}^ was recognized and fostered. 

It is asserted by several of his contemporaries that before his 
father's death Robert w^as designed for the priesthood, and that 
he had already entered his novitiate. It is probable that this is 
true, for the existing records prove that he had in some way lost 
all legal right to a share in his father's estate, and, under the 
French law of that period, connection with the Jesuits would 
have entailed its forfeiture. 

The scant gleanings that can be gathered from the few letters 
preserved in the French archives as to the manner of La Salle's 
early life give the bare facts, that when he was twenty-one years 
of age he parted with the Jesuits on friendly terms, they giving 
him excellent testimonials to his scholarly attainments, his good 

33 



34 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

conduct, and his unblemished character; that an annuity of 
four hundred Hvres was given him from the inheritance of his 
father; that an exchange of this annuity for the capital it repre^ 
sented was effected ; and that, with this modest sum, he sailed 
for Canada in 1666 to discover for France the richest possession 
she has ever let slip from her grasp. 

Although history has given but meager data by which to 
discern so checkered a personality as that of Robert Cavelier, 
who disappears from the list of Jesuit novices in 1664 to reap- 
pear as M. de la Salle in an official, report from Patoulet to 
Colbert, November 11, 1669; though we can not "clothe him in 
his ver3^ habit as he lived," we have sufficient indication of under- 
lying characteristics in the rapid movement of his life, to sketch 
a man of action whose soul is unveiled in the record of his 
achievements. That he had a clear intellect and that divining 
instinct of discovery which, without any traceable process, com- 
putes the results that await effort, is demonstrated by his suc- 
cess in the teeth of obstacles that detached from him in his first 
expedition all following except the devoted, unreasoning In- 
dian, whose higher law was comradeship in danger after the 
persuasion of prudence had failed. That he was able, ambitious, 
calm, discreet, enthusiastic, fearless, indefatigable, reticent, self- 
poised, absolute of will, inflexible of purpose, we learn, through 
the charges and admissions of his enemies. To these charac- 
teristics join the fact that he had in his veins the hot blood of 
the roving Norsemen, who cut Normandy out of Gaul in the 
reign of Charles the Simple, and it becomes plain to the most 
superficial reader of men that La Salle had the qualities and tem- 
perament which fitted him for the career he had chosen. 

Yet to comprehend the multiform individuality of so complex 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 35 

a nature, something more than a mere summary of qualities is 
needed. Any sketch of L<a Salle, however circumscribed, would 
be incomplete, if it failed to note the seeming transformation 
wrought by the changed circumstances of his life. 

The metamorphosis of Robert Cavelier into I^a Salle, of the 
Jesuit novice into the man of action, who without any previous 
knowledge of business from his first start in Canada, held his 
own, and scored success after success in his career as an Indian 
trader, would be of itself a marvel. But when to this is added the 
revelation of another and totally different personage, as soon as 
La Salle feels his foothold secure, when the man of business is 
merged into the enthusiastic discoverer, in the ambitious aspirant 
for immortality; and when, through a magnificent recklessness of 
expenditure, it is made plain that gains were valued only as a 
means to secure an end ; then it becomes necessary to turn back 
the leaves and make a study of the surroundings, the tempera- 
ment, and the teaching of Robert Cavelier, that we may under- 
stand La Salle. That his connections were people of large 
wealth, for that age, we know. That his immediate family were 
devout Catholics is proved by the entrance of two sons into the 
priesthood. Jean Cavelier, the older son, a priest of the Order 
of St. Sulpice, was sent to Canada by the superior of the Sul- 
pitians before his brother left the Jesuit Seminary. That Robert 
entered the seminary when very young is probable ; the custom 
of the time, and his proficiency in mathematics and the physical 
sciences, warrant that belief. 

Of his parents we know but little. His father died before he 
left the Jesuit Seminary; hints that faintly outline a sketch of 
his mother can be found in occasional incidental mention of her 
in connection with business transactions, where money was to 

3 



36 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

be paid. That she was a notable manager is a probability that 
can be confidently counted in the reckoning. The magnates of 
the Grande Bourgeoisie founded their fortunes upon close econo- 
mies, and in PVench mercantile houses — then as now — a man's 
wife was an active partner. The consideration won, and the po- 
sition held, by each family of this untitled commercial aristocracy, 
depended largely upon personal character and the manner in 
which gains were made. To understand this, one needs to re- 
member that the Grande Bourgeoisie was altogether a moneyed 
supplement to a proud, careless, and usually embarrassed nobility. 
Consequentl}', to the moneyed class, placed between the nobles 
and the people, character was every thing: that established as 
the permanent distinction of a family, and the good will of the 
priesthood secured, meant security of position and certainty of 
advancement through marriage alliances. It is therefore easy to 
divine Madame Cavelier's position as an autocrat in her family, 
and in the outer world an austere devote securely placed upon the 
pinnacle of commercial greatness. A hint that assists in this 
outHne sketch can be gleaned from the respectful ceremony 
observ^ed by the son in the one letter to her, which is yet in 
existence. It is a farewell letter, yet there is no spontaneity of 
feeling in it. Every word gives evidence that attentive observ- 
ance and a certain courteous phrasing of respectful esteem were 
more acceptable to " Madame and most honored mother," than 
frank confidence and unstinted expression of affection would have 
been. From this letter alone it is made plain that the shy, reti- 
cent, repressed boy had been " at odds " with life from its very 
beginning; and that through failure to understand her son, 
Madame Cavelier's influence had failed to bind him to the order 
in which he had been placed. 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIJER. 37 

That the order was a prominent factor in forming Robert 
CaveHer is beyond question. The quaHties that were essentially 
his, were more or less modified by Jesuit moulding ; in fact, it is 
patent that their training changed in no slight degree many 
chacteristics of the novice, who afterwards became a bitter enemy 
of the society he had quitted. Fortunately this moulding so 
shaped and adapted the subject-pupil for the trying future he was 
to face, that through its very compression he was much better 
fitted to deal with the wary, astute savages he was to meet, and 
with the demi-savages who followed him in the path of discovery. 

Through the histor}- of his after life, as well as from the 
reading between the lines in the brief " Family Papers," there 
are intimations — mere suggestions to inform judgment — that 
make it comparatively eas}- to picture the bo}' whose enthusiasm 
was fired, though its outward expression was restrained, b}^ the 
thrilling narratives of the Jesuit Fathers, who from time to time 
stopped at the seminary on their way to or from Canada. 

These missionaries were fanatical lovers of their order ; their 
ambition for its success was utterly devoid of personality ; conse- 
quentl}' that ambition, as a wide-spread impersonal flame, was all 
the more intense. The individual was lost in the association ; 
and it is impossible to overestimate the gain to the association 
through the character and intelligence merged in its ranks. 

To understand the special importance of the time to the 
Jesuits, it must be remembered that no period in its existence — 
up to that date — had been so fateful to the Society of Jesus. 
Canada had been the scene of their disastrous defeat, and they 
were resolved that upon the same ground a final victory should 
be won. They had eager rivals in the field ; other orders had 
gained a secure foothold. But the Society of Jesus was a imit, 



38 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

and the unit could resolve itself into countless soldiers. Many 
were already detached, and in the field. Allouez and Marquette 
were, even then, out upon the extreme border of the colony, at 
the Gateway of the I^akes, beyond which stretched the unknown 
territory of the New World. 

How fascinating these narratives were to a boy in whose 
heart the restless Norman current throbbed as stories of battle 
and of conquest were told, needs no strain of the imagination to 
understand. Fuel was fed to fire by picturesque descriptions of 
newly discovered countries, and by the marvelous accounts, 
which had been gathered from the Indians and from escaped or 
ransomed captives, of the vast regions yet unexplored. The 
Fathers told of unnumbered hosts to be saved, of fierce tribes to 
be conquered. The Cross was to be planted above the broken 
idols of the heathen, and a great empire was to be added to 
France. 

The dangers told, only lent a new charm to the picture. The 
realm of fancy never opened to any young enthusiast such rare 
attractions — such a wealth of wonders. What fire there must 
have been in the shining eyes when he knew that the Spaniards 
had not exhausted discover}^ ! Pizarro, De Soto, Cortez had left 
no successors in Spain. Beyond the New France was an un- 
known continent where a white man's foot had never trod, and 
through its mysterious forests a great river flowed westward to 
the Vermilion Sea — a highway to India, to China, to the trade 
England coveted, and the glory France might win. 

Moved by a new impulse, young Cavelier threw fresh ardor 
into his daily tasks. Plutarch had taught him what price fortune 
puts upon her favors. He knew that the day of little things pre- 
ceded the day of victory, and he began to understand that to win 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER, 39 

in this great venture, to conquer success, he must be master of 
himself, untrammeled and free. Then was born the resolve that 
the general of no order, should have power to call him back 
when the way opened, and his foot touched the threshold of dis- 
covery. The teaching of the Jesuits gave him the w^eapons that 
won his freedom. The novice was released from his novitiate. 
The order lost a priest, whose name would have illumined its 
annals, the Avorld added a new name to the Hst of discoverers 
and heroes. 

Robert Cavelier shrinks out of sight as the seminary door 
closes. But that La Salle carried to Canada a bitter remem- 
brance of some unhealed wound of the spirit, is put in evidence 
by his sudden and entire estrangement from the order to which 
he had been partiall}^ affiliated, although to the day of his death 
he was a devoted Catholic and an enthusiast for the spread of 
the faith. Just here is the problem of his Hfe which no record 
yet found has unveiled. There is twice, or thrice, mention of 
a purposed marriage. There is evidence of decided opposition, 
and — nothing more. In the hands of a novelist the construction 
of fiction might define the truth which is hidden in this veiled 
chapter in the life of La Salle. 

That part of his life which has to do with our narrative, the 
story of the discovery of the Ohio, will be given in extracts from 
the records, which have been preserved in France, and recently 
published there : 

" It happened that an Iroquois chief, Nitarikyk, sent a captive Ottawa to 
Abbe de Queylus, at Montreal, for something he needed. Being questioned 
about his tribe, which dwelt far to the south-west, the captive gave such a 
touching picture of his people, and such an interesting description of his 
country, that the Abbe wrote to M. Dollier, a Sulpitian missionary, who 
was passing the Winter with Nitarikyk to learn the Algonquin language, 



40 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

that ' as you have the salvation of the savages at heart, God has here given 
you by means of this captive an excellent opportunity to carry the cross to 
nations hitherto unknown to the French ; and, to judge from this Ottawa, 
these tribes are as docile as they are intelligent.' M. Dollier accepted the 
suggestion, and returned to make his preparation for the enterprise, and to 
receive from the Abb6 de Queylus the necessary orders. 

" The governor, M. de Courcelles, advised him to take with him M. de 
la Salle, brother of Pere Cavelier, saying 'tliey could make the journey 
more safely together ; that M. de la Salle had premeditated for a long time 
an expedition to find a great river, which he believed, from the accounts 
given him b}' the savages, had its course towards the west, but that it would 
take seven or eight months to get there ; that the savages had also told M. 
de la Salle that this river emptied into the Vermilion Sea ; that it was called 
in the language of the Iroquois Ohio ; and that upon its banks lived a great 
many Indian nations, unknown to the French, but so numerous that many 
of these tribes had from fifteen to twenty villages.' 

" He added ' that the expectation of collecting beaver-skins, and the 
hope which he placed above all others, to find the passage to the Vermilion 
Sea, into which M. de la Salle believed the Ohio emptied, would make him 
very glad to undertake the voyage, that he might find through this sea of 
the South a passage to China.' 

" M. de Courcelles will do all in his power to assist La Salle, because 
* this discovery will be a glorious gain to France ; and, besides, it will cost 
the government nothing.'' Governed by these fixed ideas, M. de Courcelles 
sent to La Salle letters patent which gave him permission ' to search the 
woods, the rivers, and the lakes of Canada, to find the head of this river.' 
The governor also recommended him to the governors of all the neighbor- 
ing provinces with whom France was at peace, and he especially requested 
the governors of Virginia and Florida to permit him to pass through any 
portion of their domain, and to give him such assistance as he should need." 

The better to assist the expedition the governor recommends 
M. Dollier to " turn your zeal towards the people living upon the 
Ohio River, and go with La Salle." Yet considering economy 
even in spreading the faith, he naivel}- adds : " M. de la Salle will 
make the arrangements for the journey; the governor can only 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 41 

aid by giving permission to take with them as guard certain 
soldiers who, if paid and provided for, are wilHng to join the 
expedition as volunteers." 

Having completed their purchases at Quebec, where they 
bought as many canoes as they could possibly man, and having 
engaged as large an escort as I^a Salle could provide for, M. Dol- 
lier and M. Barthelmy, who had received permission from the 
bishop to be of the party, reckoned their united forces. L<a Salle 
had five canoes and fourteen men, while Dollier and Barthelmy 
had two canoes and seven men. 

They were ready for the start, and about to leave, when sud- 
denly came from the Abbe de Queylus the suggestion that La 
Salle might abandon the Church party: "All know his humor to 
be changeable, and the first whim might influence him to leave 
you, and that, perhaps, when it would be very necessary for you 
to have some one who understands the people, and the situation 
of the country through which you must return. It is imprudent 
to throw yourselves into the midst of unknown dangers ; and at 
least before starting 3'ou should have some assurance as to the 
route you are likely to take." 

The following is the Abbe Gallinee's account of the ex- 
pedition : 

" It was for certain considerations that the Abbe de Oueylus permitted 
me to accompany M. Dolher when I asked his permission. First, because I 
could be useful, on account of ni}' knowledge of mathematics, in drawing 
maps of the country through which we should travel, so that in an extremity 
the party could find their way back without a guide ; besides, M. Barthelmy, 
whose place I took, knew thoroughly the Algonquin language, and thus 
could be more useful as interpreter at Montreal. 

" I had three days in which to make my arrangements. I took two 
men and a canoe, with sufficient merchandise to buy the necessaries to 



42 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

live upon from the tribes we should meet, and I was ready to embark as 
soon as the others. The haste with which my preparations were made left 
me no time to write to the bishop or the governor. 

" Our little fleet of seven canoes, each one carrying three men, left 
Montreal July 6, 1669, led by two canoes of Iroquois (Sonnontouans), 
who had come to Montreal in the Autumn of 1668 on a hunting expedition, 
and to make a treaty. These people had lived with La Salle for some 
months,"^- and had told him such marvels of the Ohio River (which they said 
they knew perfectly), that he was more than ever inflamed with the desire 
to see it. They said ' the river had its origin only three days' journey from 
Sonnontouan, and that after a month's march we would find the villages of 
Honniasontkeronons and the Chiouanons, and that after having passed those 
and the great rapid or fall which is in the river, we would reach the Outa- 
game and the country of the Iskousogos, and in that abundant country deer 
and buffalo were as plent}^ as the trees of the wood, while the villages were 
thickly inhabited.' 

" La Salle reported these things to M. Dollier, who became more and 
more anxious to save the poor savages, 'who, perhaps, would have made 
good use of the Word of God had it been spoken to them.' The zeal of M. 
Dollier prevented his remarking that La Salle, who said he perfectly under- 
stood the Iroquois, and had learned all these things through his knowledge 
of their language, knew absolutely nothing at all of it, and, in fact, threw 
himself headlong into the enterprise without knowing where he was going. 
He had been led to believe he could find at the village of the Sonnontouans 
captives from the southern tribes, who would serve for guides. I had been 
studying Algonquin, but it would have been very much better if I had 
known more of the Iroquois than I knew of Algonquin. The only inter- 
preter I had been able to find was a Holland Dutchman, who knew Iroquois 
perfectly, but unfortunately knew very little French ; but not being able to 
find any one else, I took him. M. Dollier and I had intended to pass by 
Kente, to speak with our own people who were there in the mission, but 
our guides were going to the village of Sonnontouan, and we dared not quit 
them for fear we should find no others." 

M. Gallinee continues the story, and tells how they ascended 
the St. I^awrence, and reached I^ake Ontario on the 2d of Au- 

* Note No. A, iu Appendix. 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 43 

gust, and describes the beautiful country along the rivers which 
empt}^ into this lake ; and he also tells the fact, that " it is by this 
path the Jesuits go to their missions among the Iroquois, for it is 
upon the Onnantague that they have made their principal estab- 
lishments; this and other rivers which empty into Ontario, are 
the highways that lead to the Iroquois country." 
August 8th, they arrived at an island — 

" Where a Sonnontouan chief has built him a secluded country house so 
well hidden that a passer-by, without knowing the spot, could not find it — a 
very necessary prudence, as here in the midst of the waters he is also in 
the midst of his enemies. He received us cordially, and made us welcome 
to a great feast of stewed pumpkin and roast dog. Our guide advised us to 
stay here until he should go to the village and give notice of our coming. 
We were not sure of our lives among these people, and we thought it best to 
take his advice. Peace had been made but a very short time, a peace with 
which some of the tribe were dissatisfied; and, as their chiefs are not sover- 
eigns, it was only necessary that some young warrior, who was displeased at 
the peace, and who remembered the relations he had lost in the war just ended, 
would be glad to do something which would break the treaty made by the 
older chiefs. Besides this, a still more serious reason for precaution can be 
given, from an occurrence which took place about two weeks before our de- 
parture from Montreal. Three soldiers who were in the garrison there 
found that some Indians had a stock of valuable furs, and they assassinated 
the savages to get them. Happily for us, the crime was discovered five or 
six days before our departure, the guilt of the criminals was fully proven, 
and they were shot in the presence of many Indians who happened to be at 
the fort at the time. The Indians professed to be perfectly satisfied with this 
speedy execution of justice; however, we knew that though the nation was 
appeased, the relatives might not be willing to forego their law of retaliation." 

After some humane reflections, in which the feeling of distrust 

was evidently intensified by his own position in the Indian village, 

the Abbe goes on to say : 

" I can assure you that a person who finds himself in the midst of all 
these fears, with the added alternative of death by famine in the depth of 



44 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the forest, yet who believes he is there by the will of God, and that his suf- 
ferings may be the salvation of these poor savages, realizes a certain joy 
even in all these pains. 

" M. Dollier, though sick of a fever that bid fair to carry him off, said : 
' I prefer to die in the midst of this forest, if it be the will of God, which I 
believe it is, than in the midst of my brothers in the seminary.' " 

Notwithstanding this beautiful resignation, M. Dollier soon re- 
covered, and the journey was continued until they arrived at the 
mouth of a little river, which emptied its waters into the lake not 
far from the village of Sonnontouan. Here they were " visited 
b}' a number of Indian chiefs, accompanied by women laden with 
presents of wild rice and fruit; in return we gave them knives, 
needles, and other things which they valued." 

The Abbe continues : 

" After a consultation among ourselves it was decided that I should go 
to the village with M. de la Salle to see if we could purchase a captive to 
guide us to the famous river M. de la Salle had started to find. We took 
with us eight of our Frenchmen, leaving the rest of our force with M. Dol- 
lier to guard the canoes. When near the village we found a troop of old 
men seated on the ground by the wayside, and they had left us a very com- 
fortable seat in front of them. An old chief, who was almost blind, and 
who could hardly sustain his weight with the assistance of a staff, stood up 
and made us a very animated harangue, in which he testified to his joy at 
our arrival, and that we nmst regard the Sonnantouans as brothers, and 
that as brothers he insisted upon our coming to his village, where a lodge 
was ready for us, and where all waited to know our wishes. We thanked 
him through the interpreter, and said the next day we would tell his people 
the cause of our journey. After this exchange of courtesies they conducted 
us to our lodging, and strict orders were given to the women to let us want 
for nothing. All that evening and the next morning we saw constantly 
arriving chiefs who were coming to the council, and the next day (August 
13th) we received in the lodge from fifty to sixty of the head men of the 
nation. When the parley was about to begin, for the first time M. de la 
Salle admitted that it was impossible for him to make himself understood, 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 45 

and it was very evident that my Dutch interpreter did not know enough 
French to make us understand what the chiefs were saying. In this ex 
tremity we found in our party a man who had been for some time w'ith the 
Jesuits among the Five Nations, and there was nothing left for us to do but 
to avail ourselves of such knowledge as he had. Fortunately our presents 
could speak for themselves. Our first gift to the head chief was a very hand- 
some double-barreled pistol, with the declaration that we regarded the Iro- 
quois as brothers, and with this pistol he would have one barrel for the 
Loups and the other for the x\ndostoues. After a general distribution of 
presents, we declared that we were sent on the part of the governor to visit 
the tribes living upon the Ohio, and that we wished our brothers the Iro- 
quois to give us a captive as a guide. The chiefs answered that it was 
necessary to think of this proposition, and they would give us a reply on 
the next day. The following morning the}- came early, and after distrib- 
uting among us numerous presents of beaded work, they came to the ques- 
tion of the captive. They said they would give us such a guide, but begged 
us to wait imtil their people, wdio had gone to make a treaty wdth the Hol- 
land Dutch in New York, and who were now on their homeward journey, 
should arrive at the village. We agreed to wait eight days longer, excusing 
ourselves for the limited time, as the season was passing in which we ought 
to make the journey." 

After having suffered no little from the savage messes he was 
forced through politeness to eat during the time of waiting for 
the return of the chiefs and the gift of the promised captive, the 
Abbe concluded to stay his stomach and divert his mind by mak- 
ing a trip with La Salle and two of his Indian friends to see an 
extraordinary fountain in a neighboring village. This fountain 
was formed from a little rivulet that fell from a high and broken 
rock in a considerable stream into a round basin. We let the 
father describe the spring in his own words, also the arrival of 
the absent chiefs : 

" The water is very clear, but it has a horrible odour, something like the 
mud of Paris when stirred with the foot. If 3''ou touch the spring with a 
flame it lights up as if it were brandy burning, and it is never extinguished 



46 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

until the rain begins to fall. This flame is regarded by the savages as a 
mark of abundance or sterility, according to its varying appearance. The 
water has no peculiarly bad taste. 

" While we were gone to see the fountain the chiefs returned, and 
among them were several relations of one of the men who had been killed 
at JVIontreal, and as they were drinking a good deal of the Holland gin 
which they had brought back, and did not seem to weep so much for their 
relation as they seemed determined to revenge his death, our position was 
neither safe nor pleasant. 

" At that time I saw the most miserable spectacle I have ever beheld in 
my life. The chiefs had captured on their way back and brought with them 
a prisoner, a young boy eighteen or twenty years old. At the entrance of 
the village they made him run the gauntlet, but as nothing more was then 
threatened M. de la Salle thought they would give him to us ; this we de- 
sired because he lived near the Ohio. I asked the interpreter to speak to 
the Iroquois, but he soon told me the prisoner belonged to an old woman 
w'liose son had been killed, and that it would be impossible for us to pre- 
vent his death. I insisted, offering to pay any ransom asked ; but the in- 
terpreter still refused to make the request, saying it would only place him- 
self and us in danger, as the woman was related to the leading chiefs, and 
this Indian custom of expiation was one that even a chief dared not break." 

The horrible details of the execution need not be given, but 
the reader can imagine what effect the tortures they witnessed 
had upon the party. M. Gallinee concludes his story thus : 

" If I had known that they intended to kill him, I would have assuredly 
baptized him, because then I should have had the night in which to instruct 
him ; but when the knowledge suddenly came a few moments before his 
sufferings began, I could only encourage him to bear it patiently and to offer 
his torments to God. I succeeded in making him understand better than 
I had hoped, because he knew the Algonquin tongue, which I could speak, 
and he said after me, and continued to repeat it during his sufferings : ' Thou 
who hast made all, have pity upon me.' 

•• I could only retire to our lodge full of grief that I could not save this 
poor captive, and better than ever I understood that it was wiser for me not 
to go among these nations without understanding their language, or being 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 47 

assured of an interpreter. M. de la Salle came in to say the excitement in 
the village made him apprehend further trouble. Many of the Indians 
were drunk, and they might insult us in such a manner that we should be 
forced into a difficulty with them, and that it would be better to return to 
the canoes, and to wait there with the rest of our people until the Indians 
became calm and sober. This good advice was acted upon, and we went to 
rejoin M. Dollier, about six leagues from the village. . . . 

" During our stay in the village we had made many inquiries as to the 
route we should follow to arrive at the Ohio River, and every one had told 
us that by going in the canoes to the next lake we could land at a spot 
only three days' march from the head-waters of the river. The Indians had 
told our interpreter frightful stories of the tribes we would meet, saying 
when we reached the Ohio we would encounter a people who would cer- 
tainly put us to death, and for that reason they had not given us a guide, 
for fear the governor would hold them responsible for what might happen 
to us. It was easy to see the interpreter was too frightened to be of any use. 

" When our neighbors visited us after their fearful orgy was over, they 
put off the subject of a guide from day to day, and we saw we were losing 
the favorable season, and were uncertain as to where we could pass the 
winter. M. de la Salle said our death was assured if we should attempt to 
winter in the woods. We were relieved of this uneasiness by the arrival of 
one of the chiefs, who had returned from the council with the Dutch in 
New Holland. This Indian assured us there should be no difficulty about 
a guide ; that he had captives from the different tribes where we desired to 
go, and he himself would very willingly go with us. Led by this hope, we 
quitted the Sonnontouans. 

" Our guide took us to a river an eighth of a league in width, and ex- 
tremely rapid, which brings the waters of the upper lakes into Lake Ontario. 
The depth of this river is something prodigious below where it falls from 
the upper lake through the grandest cataract in the world. The haste 
we were in to get to our landing place prevented our taking time to see 
this marvel. We had to make our portage from near the mouth of the 
river, some distance from the cataract, by a path the Indians knew, which 
led us around and above the rapids through which the waters pass before 
they fall over the cataract. 

"While waiting at the little village below this place, where all the 
people were engaged to carry our baggage, M. de la Salle returned from a 



48 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

hunt, bringing back a severe attack of fever, which in a few days brought 
him very low. 

" After three days of waiting, all the leading men of the village came 
to see us. At this council our Dutchman was of more use as an interpreter 
than he had been at the larger village of the Sonnontouans. There was 
another exchange of presents, and two captives were given us as guides, 
one of the tribe of the Chiouanons, the other of the Nez-Perces. The 
Chiouanon fell to M. de la Salle, and the other to us. 

" We left this place with more than fifty savages and savagesses, and it 
took us two days to reach the end of the portage where our baggage was 
waiting. Here we learned that two Frenchmen were at the village to which 
we were going, who had come from the land of the Outaouacs, and on arriv- 
ing at our destination on the 24th September, we found Sieur Jolliet, who 
had arrived the day before on his return from Lake Superior, where he ha(i 
been sent by the governor to examine the newly discovered copper-mines. 

" The illness of M. de la Salle had begun to take away his desire to go 
on to the Ohio, and now he began to be equally anxious to return to Mon- 
treal. The representations of Sieur Jolliet determined us to change our 
route, and visit the missions on the Superior, while IM. de la Salle said the 
state of his health did not permit him to think of the journey to Lake 
Superior, and he begged us to excuse him for abandoning us on the way." 

That the Abbe Gallinee did not understand La Salle is evi- 
dent from the mention he makes of his illness, "caused by fright 
at meeting three rattlesnakes in the path." 

M. DoUier, an ex-soldier, brought up in the school of Tti- 
renne, was a much better judge of the metal of the 3'oung com- 
rade, who courteously pleaded the state of his health as a reason 
for turning back w^hen the Abbe and M. Dollier changed their 
plan of going to the Ohio, and decided to visit the missions on the 
the upper lakes. La Salle's excuses made ("fine words," Dollier 
calls them), he left the two priests and their followers on the north 
side of Lake Ontario, and returned either to the Indian villages 
or to the south side of Niagara River, and continued his way 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER. 49 

thence to the Ohio. There is some doubt as to the route he fol- 
lowed, but none as to his determined purpose and its accomplish- 
ment. Unfortunately, the papers and maps which record the 
journey, and illustrate the course pursued, and which were in 
the possession of his niece in 1756, were lost in the later years 
of that stormy century. 

A Memoir of La Salle, written b}^ one of his contemporaries 
(supposed to be the Abbe Renaudot), gives a condensed sketch 
of the trip, as La Salle told it to the writer; it is geographically 
correct and indisputably true, and therefore is added herewith : — 

" M. de la Salle went back to the Indian village, and from thence started 
anew to find the Ohio. The Indians gnided him across by easy portages to 
the head-waters of the Ohio ; after reaching that river he pursued his jour- 
ney westward until he came to the rapids, which end in a low swampy coun- 
try. Here he was constrained to land ; leaving the river for the higher 
ridges (on the northern bank) he found an Indian-hunting camp. These 
Indians told him that some distance below the river, which here seemed to 
have lost itself in little rivulets that wandered about through the vast ex- 
tent of forest-covered marshes, reunited its waters in a great stream. This 
decided him to continue his journey by land ; but that night his followers 
deserted him, and, regaining the river above the rapids, went back. 

" Finding himself alone (except for one or two faithful Indians) , and 
over four hundred leagues from Montreal, he could do nothing, but return." 

The official records of The Discovery of the River yet 
rest in the French Archives, and are shown in three or four 
documents which are reproduced in M. Margry's late work. 

First. There is a petition to the king ("Demande du Privi- 
lege"), asking certain concessions in recognition of his discov- 
eries south of the lakes, and especially of the Ohio River. 

Seco7id. There are the official maps, made {hy his rivals) in 
1673 and the 3'ears immediately following, which show the course 
of the Ohio, and in each the discovery is credited to La Salle. 



50 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Third. There are several dispatches to the king and to Col- 
bert from the governor-general and intendant of Canada, in 
which mention is made of " these discoveries of Le Sieur de la 
Salle, of various countries and rivers south of the lakes;" and in 
each something is said of "the Beautiful River," which is called 
"The Ohio," " the Bright River," "the Shining River," and 
" the Deep Shining River." 

Fourth. In consideration of his discoveries, the king grants 
him a patent of nobility, creating him a knight, and making him 
governor of Fort Frontenac. 

An extract from one of these documents, in which La Salle 
speaks of himself in the third person, and the record ends : — 

" In 1667, and the following years, he made many journeys — at great 
expense— in which he was the first discoverer of the country south of the 
Great Lakes, and among other rivers, the Ohio. He followed its current to 
the rapids, where, after having been increased by a large river coming from 
the north, it spreads over wide swampy lowlands ; and there is every indi- 
cation that these collected waters find their way to the Gulf of Mexico." 

The other documents relating to La Salle in this new revela- 
tion of history belong to the records of the Mississippi. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH CONTEST FOR THE OHIO. 

THE French, by right of La Salle's discovery, laid claim to the 
whole stretch of country from the great lakes to the Ohio, 
while England declared the territory to be hers, and had included 
it in her grant to the colony of Virginia. Each contestant had 
allies among the Indians, who, however, were from time to time 
easily influenced to desert the one and aid the other. 

' Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the white set- 
tlements in Virginia and Pennsylvania were reaching out to 
and extending over the mountain chain. Hunters and traders, 
the early pioneers of civilization, had brought back to the settle- 
ments upon every return from the Indian country highly colored 
reports of the richness of the Western mountain glades, and of 
the beauty and importance of the mountain streams, which they 
had already begun to connect with the stories that had come 
from the far South of the mystic and might}- Mississippi. 

At this juncture Thomas Lee, one of the council of Virginia, 
organized a syndicate of London merchants, which was called 
The Ohio Company.* The object of the syndicate was to settle 
the wnld lands south and west of the Ohio, and secure as large a 
part as possible of Indian trade from the French. This grant em- 
braced a large area on the south of the Ohio, between the Mo- 
nongahela and Kanawha Rivers, with the further privilege of 
taking such lands on the north side of the river as should sub- 
sequently be deemed expedient. This territory was exempt 

* Appendix A, No. II, 53 



54 . THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

from taxation on condition of its being taken up by actual set- 
tlers within a limited time, and also that the company should 
build a fort and sustain a garrison for their protection. To gain 
the good-will of the Indians a treaty was proposed, and that no 
time might be lost the company resolved to open roads from the 
head-waters of the Potomac to some convenient point on the 
Monongahela. 

That Pennsylvania might not be distanced in the race, the 
proprietary government through Andrew Palmer, president of 
the council, gave instructions, January 23, 1748, to their agent to 
use his utmost diligence to visit all the neighboring tribes, and 
learn their numbers, strength, and disposition toward the colony. 
Their agent, Weiser, had one eminent advantage over his com- 
peers ; he knew perfectly the language of the people with whom 
he was empowered to open negotiations. He immediately started 
West, and received invaluable aid from George Crogan, a trader 
and agent of the proprietary council, who was already settled on 
Beaver Creek, a few miles from its junction with the Ohio. 

Unhappil)^ neither the government of Penns3dvania nor the 
attempts of the Ohio Company, under the patronage of the coun- 
cil of Virginia, succeeded in conciliating the disaffected Indians, 
or in dividing them from the French, who had already begun to 
build a line of forts from their settlements in Canada to the outlet 
of the Mississippi below New Orleans. Their northern forts 
were situated at Presque Isle on Lake Erie, at Le Boeuf, and at 
Venango. The building of these forts so aroused the spirit of 
the English that Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent Washing- 
ton to the French commander at Ee Boeuf to demand his " rea- 
sons for invading English territory in time of peace." On No- 
vember 22, 1753, the "young envoy" reached Fraziers, at the 



CONTEST FOR THE OHIO. 55 

mouth of Turtle Creek ; from thence he continued his route by 
way of Hill's Creek to Shannopin's, an old Indian town on the 
Alleghen}^ about two miles above its union with the Monon- 
gahela. He examined the position at the junction of the afflu- 
ents forming the Ohio, and reported the point as favorable for a 
fortification. At Logstown he called together a council of In- 
dians, and although he gained the information he sought relative 
to the French garrisons and numbers, he was constantly thwarted 
by the influence the French had gained over the Indians. He 
proceeded to Le Boeuf, where he delivered his dispatches to the 
French commander, who in reply to the message from the gov- 
ernor of Virginia said that "it was not in his province to specify 
the evidence and demonstrate the right of the king, his master, 
to the lands situated on the Ohio, but he would transmit the let- 
ter to the Marquis du Quesne, and act according to the answer he 
should receive from that nobleman.'"-^ He did not hesitate to 
declare, however, that in the meantime he should " hold all the 
land claimed through the discovery of La Salle." With this un- 
qualified statement, Washington set out on his return, encoun- 
tering on the way many hardships and perils. Much of the 
journey from Venango was made on foot with a single com- 
panion. Once he barely escaped death by drowning; again he 
was shot at by an Indian, at a distance of but fifteen paces, 3'et 
received no injury. Although impatient at every delay, he spent 
a w^hole da}^ with the aid of a poor hatchet, in constructing a 
rude raft on which to cross the Allegheny; but he soon found 
himself blocked in the ice, and unable to proceed until the river 
was completely frozen over. Rapid progress at such a season 



'•'The letter from the governor of Virginia required the French to withdraw from the 
dominions of Great Britain. 



56 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

was impossible ; but at last he arrived with his dispatches safe in 
Williamsburg. 

In spite of ill reports brought by Washington from their 
western domains, the Ohio Company decided to strengthen their 
position in the w^est. They had one block-house at Redstone 
(now Brownsville), and they determined to take and hold per- 
manent posession of the entire country named in their grant. 
In February, 1754, they sent a re-enforcement and began the 
foundation of a redoubt where Pittsburg now stands. Before the 
work was finished Contrecoeur, a French officer, with one thou- 
sand French and Indians, and eighteen pieces of cannon, arrived 
from Venango, and compelled the surrender of the post, which 
they fortified and named Fort Duquesne, after the governor of 
Canada. They loaded their Indian allies with presents of guns, 
ammunition, blankets, and beads, and the joy of conquest com- 
pleted the alienation of the Indians from the English, and the 
treaty of 1754 was made. 

On his return from the French forts Washington had been 
placed in command of an expedition to aid in completing the re- 
doubt begun b}^ his advice. En route for this point he had 
reached Will's Creek (afterwards Fort Cumberland), when he 
learned of Contrecoeur's descent upon the redoubt. Nothing 
daunted, he wrote to the governor for re-enforcements, and deter- 
mined to push on to the Monongahela. His plan was to wait 
at Redstone for Colonel Fry's troops on their retreat from 
the lost position, then drop down the river and attack the 
French. But he had not accomplished more than fifty miles 
through this rough country when he was apprised by a dispatch 
from the half-king* of the approach of the enemy. He was 

'•'■ A title given to one of the Shawnee chiefs. 



CONTEST FOR THE OHIO. 57 

encamped at Great Meadows, where he now determined to intrench 
himself. After sending out reconnoitering parties, who failed to 
discover any trace of the French, Washington, with forty men, set 
out at nine o'clock on a dark and rainy night, and by difficult and 
toilsome paths, reached the half-king's camp at sunrise. His 
Indian ally knew where the tracks of the French had been seen, 
and consented to send tw^o of his people to follow these tracks 
to the lurking-place of the enemy, while expressing his willing- 
ness to go hand in hand wuth his brother, as he called Washing- 
ton, to strike the French. The result was an engagement of 
about fifteen minutes; in which the French were defeated. 
Their party had come as spies, but pretended to have been sent 
with a communication to Washington, who, how^ever, was not 
deluded by the excuse. Sending his prisoners, twenty-one in 
number, to Governor Dinwiddie, at Williamsburg, he prepared 
for the attack which he had good reason to expect, and Fort 
Necessity'^ w^as hastily strengthened. On the 3d of July it 
was attacked by seven hundred French and Indians. The fight 
lasted for nine hours. The courage of the raw^ provincials and 
the coolness of their young leader enabled them to hold the po- 
sition against greatly superior numbers. The French com- 
mander, De Villiers, sent in a flag of truce, offering terms of 
capitulation, which were accepted. The English withdrew from 
their only foothold upon the Ohio ; and the Beautiful River, to- 
gether with the entire valley of the Mississippi, was left to the 
French and their Indian allies. 

The next effort to regain Fort Duquesne was part of the 
well planned and badly executed campaign of 1755. A large 



'■'Fort Necessity was eight miles from Uniontown, on the Youghiogheny, and about 
fifty miles from Cumberland. 



58 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

and well-disciplined army, under General Braddock, was to storm 
the fort, and wrest the Ohio Valley from the French. 

"After taking Fort Duquesne," Braddock said to Franklin, "I 
am to proceed to Niagara, and having taken that, to Frontenac. 
Duquesne can hardly detain me more than three or four days, and 
then I can see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." 

"The Indians are dexterous in laying and executing ambus- 
cades," suggested Franklin. 

"The savages may be formidable to your raw American 
militia; upon the king's regular and well-disciplined troops it is 
impossible they should make any impression," replied the 
British general. 

After numerous delays, Braddock succeeded in marching his 
army across the mountains to within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. 
The French, aware of his approach, with the aid of the Indians 
sallied forth to prepare an ambuscade. They unexpectedly found 
themselves in the presence of the English, and instantly began 
an attack, which lasted for two hours, and resulted most disas- 
trously for Braddock's regulars, who were terrified by the yells 
of the Indians, and utterly demoralized from the first. Wash- 
ington, acting as aid to General Braddock, was in the thickest 
of the fight, and his escape seemed almost miraculous. Brad- 
dock fell mortally wounded, after having had five horses killed 
under him. He was carried off the field on a stretcher made of 
his heavy sash, to a place of safety ; but died before the retreat- 
ing army reached Cumberland. The English lost seven hundred 
killed and wounded ; while of the French and Indians only thirty- 
three were killed. The defeated army was not pursued, as the 
Indians could not be induced to leave the scene of carnage. 

Three years passed before any further effort was made to dis- 



CONTEST FOR THE OHIO. 59 

lodge the French from the "Gateway of the West." Fortunately 
for the Colonies England now had a minister who recognized 
the importance of the position. Pitt determined the English 
to make fresh effort to obtain possession of Fort Duquesne. 
An expedition for this purpose was intrusted to General Jo- 
seph Forbes, who, after long waiting and many disappointments, 
found himself at the head of an army of six thousand two hun- 
dred men — Scotch Highlanders, Royal Americans, Militia, and 
Volunteers; among the last w^ere Benjamin West, the painter, 
and Anthony Wayne, then a lad of thirteen. Washington, in 
command of the Virginia regiments, led the advance, and but for 
him the expedition would most probably have failed. During 
the long and trying march through snow and over rocky roads 
his brave spirit cheered his men, and made them disregard hard- 
ships which they would not have borne so uncomplainingly 
under a leader less trusted. 

The garrison at Fort Duquesne, disheartened at the approach 
of so superior a force, determined to abandon the post. Accord- 
ingly, after setting fire to the fort on the night of November 24, 
1758, they embarked on the river in the light of the flames. 
On the evening of the next day the British flag floated over the 
ruins, and from that time the place has commemorated the name 
of Pitt. 

The possession of the Ohio was now secured by the English ; 
and the contest between two civilized nations for land, rightfully 
the property of neither, w^as ended. 




THREE HUNDRED FEET UP BEACKWAT^ER. 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 

THE earliest settlements on the Ohio River were made in 
the years 1770 and 1773— the one by the Zane brothers, 
at Wheeling; the other at Louisville, by the Taylors, Thomas 
BuUitt, the McAfees, McCouns, and Adams. 

The spot selected by the Zanes in 1769 became in 1777 the 
scene of the memorable siege of Fort Henry, in which a little 
band of defenders were opposed by savages more than thirty 
times their number, led by Simon Girty, the renegade. 

After fighting for several hours the supply of powder was so 
reduced that a surrender would have been inevitable but for the 
heroism of Elizabeth Zane. At her brother's house, across an 
open space just outside the fort, was a keg of gunpowder, to ob- 
tain which the commander was about to send out one of the 
men, when the sister of the Zanes stepped forward and insisted 
that to her the undertaking should be intrusted, urging that the 
danger attending the venture was sufficient reason why the life 
of a soldier should not be risked, for the garrison was already 
too weak to spare even one of its number. The firing was dis- 
continued for a short time, thus giving a favorable opportunity 
to the brave girl, who, in full view of the enemy, made her way 
across the open space, obtained her prize, and was returning 
with it before the Indians suspected her purpose. They mime- 
diately leveled their pieces and aimed a volley at her as she 
ran toward the gate; but not a ball grazed her clothing, and 

63 



64 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

she entered the fort in safet}^ bearing the keg of powder in 
her arms. 

Although the spot upon which Louisville was built was se- 
lected in 1773, it w^as an uncertain home for the few families 
there collected, w-ho were in constant dread of the Indians. All 
this was changed in 1778, w^hen George Rogers Clark made his 
successful foray into the Indian country. Virginia had raised a 
regiment for the defense of the w^estern frontier ; with this force 
Clark descended the Monongahela and the Ohio to the Falls.* 
Halting a few days at the little settlement, he waited for the 
Kentucky volunteers to join him. One direct consequence of 
his success was the preservation of the settlement at the mouth of 
"Bear Grass Creek." Previous to that period the families of the 
pioneers who w^ere collected at the Falls of the Ohio had been com- 
pelled to seek safety upon the small island abreast of the present 
site of the city. Here Clark had built a fort, and at his depart- 
ure about thirteen families remained on this narrow^ islet, in the 
midst of the foaming rapids, surrounded by enemies and en- 
during the severest privations, yet tenacious^ maintaining their 
foothold. The capture of Vincennes, by breaking up the nearest 
and strongest of the enemy's western posts, relieved their appre- 
hensions of immediate danger, and encouraged them to settle 
permanently on the Kentucky shore. 

The possibility of establishing settlements on the river having 
been demonstrated at the two points mentioned, it was not long 
before other bands of determined men were induced, either by the 
love of adventure or the fertility of the soil, to brave the hardships 
and dangers of pioneer life. A clear title to four hundred acres of 
well-watered and well-timbered productive land, in an agreeable 

-Appendix A, No. UI 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS, 65 

climate, where game was abundant, could be obtained by simply 
putting up a log cabin and raising one crop. For this reason 
many a hardy woodsman of the older settlements, where land was 
both poor in quality and high in price, made light of the risk ; 
and thinking only of gain, shouldered his rifle and ax, and with 
all his wordh' goods on a pack-saddle, made his way, with horse 
and dog, over the mountains. 

Wild and extravagant stories were wafted across the Atlantic. 
Designing agents of more designing speculators formed in France 
a company of five hundred emigrants, w^ho left their native 
shores and encountered perils by sea and land to reach the " won- 
derful Ohio Valley." They landed at Alexandria, but it was 
months before their conductors made arrangements for them to 
cross the mountains. After having been two 3^ears on the jour- 
ney they reached their destination, and began building the town 
of Gallipolis, on the Ohio River.* 

About the same time settlements were begun at Marietta, 
Manchester, Maysville, and Cincinnati, in spite of the outrages 
committed by the savages. Accounts of inhuman butcheries 
and cruel tortures inflicted upon the early settler fill pages of 
history. Strong men, bravely patient women, innocent children, 
all learned to dread the savage yell which announced the pres- 
ence of the Indian ; and they feared still more the treacherous 
ambuscade into which, when in apparent security, so many heed- 
lessly wandered. Homes were destroyed, the husband and 
father slain and scalped, the wife and mother carried into cap- 
tivity, and little children tomahawked and left to feed the wild 
beasts that lurked in the forests bordering the "Warrior's 
Road." An incident in the history of Maysville will give a 

'•'Appendix A, No. IV. 



66 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

very fair picture of what might be looked for by those attempting 
to settle on the river : 

"John May and several companions were drifting down the Ohio, 
bound for Maysville, when suddenly, at daylight one morning, an alarm of 
danger M^as given. A dense smoke was seen rising above the trees on the 
northern shore. The party determined at once to seek the opposite side 
of the river ; but they were hailed by two white men, who ran down to the 
shore and implored to be taken on board. They said that they had just 
escaped from the Indians, and were closely pursued, and unless taken on 
board would surely be recaptured and killed. They were suspected of 
treachery by some of the party in the boat, but their entreaties made 
others beg that they might be rescued. May was resolute in his refusal, 
but one of his companions induced him to put in to the shore just long 
enough to allow him to land. The savages hidden under the drooping 
willows were instantly masters of the situation, though they contented 
themselves for some time with firing upon the crew without making any 
attempt to take possession of the boat. As soon as it was seen that resist- 
ance was usele'ss, all hands lay down on their faces wherever they could 
best be protected. One of the women was shot and instantly killed, one of 
the men was severely wounded, and May, finding the firing hotter at every 
moment, waved a signal of surrender, and was killed in the act. The savages 
now made for the boat, and on boarding it shook hands with their prisoners, 
and then coolly scalped the dead. After pulling the boat ashore they ex- 
amined and destroyed every thing of value, until they stumbled upon a keg 
of whisky, which they carried off in great exultation. . . . 

" One of their captives was burned at the stake ; another, after running 
the gauntlet, was condemned to death, but made his escape. A woman of 
the party who had seen her sister shot and killed, had been bound to the 
stake, fagots were piled around her ready to be fired, when a chief, more 
merciful than his companions, interfered and had her released." 

It was amid scenes such as these that the settlements on the 
Ohio River were begun, and notwithstanding the frequent raids 
of the savages the number of these settlements steadily increased, 
until the whole region was reclaimed ; for the Red Man learned to 



EARL Y SE TTLEMENTS. 67 

dread the "Long Knives," and prudently withdrew to other 
hunting-grounds. The attractions of the country were so varied, 
and the Indians had been so thoroughly taught to respect the 
fighting qualities of the Scotch-Irish emigrants from the valley 
of Virginia and Pennsylvania, that we can understand why 
Washington said of the settlement at Marietta: ''No colony was 
ever settled under more favorable auspices." 

Glowing accounts were sent back to their old homes by the 
"advance guard" of civilization— they were enthusiastic about 
the riches of the Ohio country, "where cattle could be fed all the 
year round on pasturage springing spontaneously from the soil ; 
where lands suitable for raising grain could outvie the islands 
of the Mediterranean ; and where there were bogs from which 
might be gathered cranberries enough to make tarts for all New 
England." 

The other side of the picture was passed over in silence; 
no mention was made of danger and discomfort, of crops 
wantonly destroyed by vengeful Indians, of flocks robbed by 
wild animals, of the inconvenience of being farmer and sol- 
dier at once ; for no man dared venture from his door without a 
rifle, and guards were invariably posted to give an alarm to 
those working in the field should there be any sign of the 
enemy. 

These delusive accounts sent by the pioneers to friends m 
their old homes awakened the keenest interest, and soon new 
re-enforcements poured into the settlements from New England, 
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The old Braddock trail became one 
of the highways by which the emigrant sought his new home, 
and on reaching an affluent of the Ohio a flat-boat was con- 
structed, and the journey continued. These boats, called keels, 

5 



68 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

sometimes "from fifty to seventy-five feet long, were sharp at 
both ends, drawing Httle water, and capable of carrying a good 
burden."* 

The more provident man, of those seeking homes in the 
western wilds, always preceded his family, and spent a season in 
raising a crop and in other preparations, before making the move; 
otherwise much suffering was often the result, for when the supply 
of provisions brought from across the mountains was exhausted, 
it could only be replenished with game. Lean venison and the 
breast of wild turkey were substituted for bread, and bear's-flesh 
or other gross food was styled meat. After a season's crops had 
been gathered the family bill of fare ordinarily consisted of "hog 
and hominy," with Johnny-cake for breakfast and dinner, and 
mush for supper. This last was frequently served and eaten 
with bear's oil, a T Indiemie. 

Crockery was an unheard-of luxury; wooden trenchers and 
much-battered pewter ware, supplemented with bone or gourd, 
were considered luxuries. Iron utensils and knives and forks, 
as well as salt and iron castings, were brought across the 
mountains on pack-horses, and were consequently very ex- 
pensive. 

A caravan trade was carried on in order to obtain indispen- 
sables, but furs and peltries were the only articles of export until 
time enough had elapsed for the raising of cattle and horses for 
Eastern markets. A cow and calf was the usual price paid for 
a bushel of salt, which, until weights came into use, was meas- 



=:•■ other boats then in use were called arks: "These arks are built for sale for the 
accommodation of families descending the river, and for the convenience of produce. They 
are flat -bottomed and square at the ends, and are all made of the same dimensions, being 
fifty feet long and fourteen broad. They are covered, and are managed by a steering-oar, 
which can be lifted out of the water. The usual price is seventy-five dollars, and each will 
accommodate three or four families as they carry from twenty-five to thirty X.oxv'S,.'" —Bradbury. 



EARL Y SETTLE3/ENTS. 69 

ured by hand into a half bushel. This was done with the utmost 
care, and every precaution taken to prevent the displacement of 
a single grain. 

Each family possessed a hominy-block, which consisted of a 
huge block of wood with a hole burnt in one end, and so formed 
that the pestle w^ould throw the corn in such a manner as to 
make it fall back into the center, and thus come again under the 
strokes of the pestle. The hand-mill, usually possessed by sev- 
eral families in common, was precisely the same as that used in 
Palestine to-day, and which is mentioned in the Bible. It was 
made of two circular stones placed in a hoop, with a spout for 
sending off the meal. A handle was fitted in the upper stone, 
and so fastened that two persons could grind at the same time ; 
the grain was run by hand into the opening in the upper 
stone. The first water-mills w^ere called tub-mills, and were 
of very simple construction. Instead of bolting-cloths, sifters 
of deer-skins were used; these w^ere made by stretching the 
skin in a state of parchment over a hoop, and perforating it 
with a hot wire. 

Homespun and home-cut garments alone were used, linsey- 
woolsey — a mixture of flax and wool — and coarse linen were the 
staple fabrics. It was not until the first retail store was opened 
at Louisville, in 1783, that the belle of the "forest land" could 
adorn her comely person in gorgeous calico, and the dandy of 
the settlement could doff his coon-skin cap for a wool hat. A 
chronicler of the day, in commenting on this store, says: "The 
tone of society became visibly more elevated." 

In building his cabin the settler had no use for other tools 
than an ax, an ^ugur, and a cross-cut saw. Wooden pins took 
the place of nails, and unhewn logs, poles, clapboards, and pun- 



70 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

cheons were the materials necessary. If a window were desired, 
the aperture was fitted with a frame, over which oiled paper was 
stretched; but light was usually admitted through the open 
door. When in the course of time an enterprising merchant 
added window-glass to his stock in trade, and by way of adver- 
tising his new commodity improved his own establishment, great 
was the amazement of the settlement urchins, who had never seen 
any other habitation than that of the backwoodsman. One of 
the hopefuls, on seeing for the first time a house with glass win- 
dows, rushed home to his mother, exclaiming : " O, ma, there is a 
house down here with specs on." 

A hard life of constant toil in the midst of ever-present 
danger admitted few opportunities for merry-making. Log- 
rolling, cabin-building, and harvesting always ended with a 
frolic, but the celebration of a marriage was the sole occasion 
when friends met for pleasure alone. Wedding festivities some- 
times continued for several days; they were always initiated at 
the house of the groom, where his attendants met to accompany 
him to the home of the bride. The party would set out in 
great glee, but their progress would frequently be interrupted by 
barricades of grape-vines. Practical jokes of various kinds met 
them at every turn, until, when within a mile of their destina- 
tion, the race for "Black Betty" began. Two of the party being 
selected by the others, put their ponies to their utmost speed, 
and the one reaching the house first received at the door a 
bottle of whisky, with which he returned to treat the groom and 
his attendants. 

The marriage always took place in the forenoon, and dinner 
followed immediately after the ceremony. The^ came the danc- 
ing, invariably beginning with a "square four," which led into 



EARL V SE TTLEMENTS. 7 1 

what was called "jigging it off," and was kept up without inter- 
mission for hours. 

Although the standard of morals was generally good, but 
few — before the days of camp-meetings, which, however, were 
early instituted — regarded Sunday other than a rest-day for the 
aged and a play-day for the youngster. But if rehgion was 
wanting, superstition abounded, and many held firmly to a 
belief in witches.* 

In one of the settlements drunkenness had become so dis- 
tressing the better class of the community determined to try to 
abate the evil by imposing a fine ; the stumps had not yet been 
removed from the pubHc thoroughfares, and it was decreed that 
any person found guilty of intemperance should be compelled to 
dig up a stump. The plan worked admirably. But some of the 
fines and penalties, though assigned by a judge of the court, 
were sometimes quite disproportionate to the offense ; in more 
than one instance an offender was condemned to death for petty 
larceny. 

The price at which certain articles might be sold was fixed 
by court: A half-pint of whisky at $15; corn at $10 a gallon; 
lodging in a feather-bed, $6; a "diet," $12; and stable or pas- 
turage for one night, $4. The seeming exorbitance of these 
charges is accounted for by the fact that Continental money was 
the only currency. 

In the first days of a settlement but little attention was paid 
to drainage, and of the many disorders prevalent in consequence, 
perhaps rheumatism was most general; for this reason each 



*It was often said that witches had milked the cows, and this was supposed to have been 
done, "by fixing a new pin in a new towel for each cow intended to be milked ; the towel 
was hung over her own door, and by means of certain incantations the witch extracted milk 
from the fringes of the towel after the manner of milking a cow." 



72 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

backwoodsman slept with his feet to the fire, either to prevent or 
to allay the trouble. The sovereign remedy for this and other 
diseases was "Seneca Oil," the petroleum of the present day.* 

Perhaps there is nothing more amazing in the development 
of the country than the rapidity with which manufacturing 
establishments sprang up, first on its southern affluents, and 
then on the Ohio itself. Before the close of the century 
(which had entered its eighth decade when the first step was 
made towards civilizing the Ohio region) flour was shipped in 
considerable quantities for New Orleans and the West Indies, 
in vessels built on the Allegheny or Monongahela; and glass- 
houses, paper-mills, rope-walks, tanneries, potteries, powder-mills, 
salt-works,t and printing-offices were in operation at various 
points. 

At the close of the century the river began to present a very 
lively appearance. Up to 1795 the population numbered not 
more than twenty-five families for each hundred miles of the 
river's length, from Pittsburgh to its mouth ; but by 1802 planta- 
tions were said to have increased so " that they were not more 
than from one to three miles asunder, and some of them always 
within sight from the middle of the river, "t Perhaps this statement 
had best be taken aun grano salis ; but the influx from Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia had undoubtedly made a marked differ- 
ence in the prosperit}^ of the settlements. Arks were con- 

*"The Seneca Indian Oil is aliqiud bitumen which oozes through fissures of the rocks, 
and is found floating on the surface of several springs."— //arrrj'^ To2ir. 

" Here is a spring on the top of which floats an oil similar to that called Barbadoes tar. 
It is very efficacious in rheumatic pains; troops sent to guard the Western posts bathed their 
joints with it, and found great relief from rheumatic complaints with which they were 
afflicted." — Navigator. 

t" That the Indians were acquainted with the art of evaporating salt-brine, is evident 
from the ancient pottery found near the Kanawha salt-works."— Z>orf^^. 

X Michaux. 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 73 

stantly passing down the river, transporting human freight, as 
well as live-stock, farming implements, and such articles as were 
deemed indispensable to the establishment of a home in the 
wilderness. 

Pittsburgh had gained in commercial what it had lost in mili- 
tary importance. It had been transformed from a well-guarded 
outpost, with a few straggling huts built near the fortification, 
to a town of four hundred houses (many of which were of brick), 
and the fort adjoining the town had sunk into insignificance, 
and was manned only by a weak garrison, for the Indians had 
now withdrawn into the interior. The town could boast of two 
printing-offices and four newspapers a week, and had become the 
entrepot for goods shipped at Philadelphia for the western set- 
tlements, as well as for the products that were sent to New Or- 
leans from the towns on the Allegheny and Monongahela, and 
the surrounding country. Some of these articles were flour, 
hams, smoked pork, bar iron, coarse cloths, bottles, whisky, and 
barreled butter. Three-masted vessels of two hundred tons 
burthen were being constructed ; others of considerable tonnage 
had already been launched on the Monongahela. They were sup- 
plied with cordage manufactured at Redstone (Brownsville). 

Wheeling, Marietta, Cincinnati, Maysville, Manchester, Car- 
rollton, and Louisville had grown in proportion to the location 
and the character of their settlers and those of the adjacent 
country, among whom were many who preferred the excitement 
of the chase to the plodding life of a tiller of the soil. The 
hardships, trials, and vexations the early settlers endured with 
patience and courage can not easily be appreciated by a people 
who are looking backward through the vista of a century. 

More resolute, honest, and upright men have never opened 



74 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

a country for the coming of civilization, than were the settlers 
who builded their rough log cabins upon the forest-clad banks of 
the Monongahela. The women who shared their checkered for- 
tunes were worthy to be the wives and mothers of those hardy, 
daring pioneers of a republic which owes its existence to their 
fortitude and courage, and its greatness to their virtue and 
patriotism. 

These settlers had followed in the wake of the " long hunters" 
of Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. Their homes were hos- 
pitably open to all travelers, and the "block-houses" were ral- 
lying-points for Indian traders and Indian fighters, before the 
Colonies refused to drink taxed tea, or unfurled the Starry Flag 
in the teeth of every wind that blew. 

In every struggle west of the mountains, where men were 
hastily gathered by hundreds or twenties, to fight French troops 
and their Indian allies, or, in later days, English and Indian in- 
vaders, the pioneers met the shock and brunt of battle. Wher- 
ever danger stalked or border foes met in desperate encounter, 
the courage of the settlers was tested, and, in the main, it rang 
true as steel. They were restive under military restraint, for 
they were above all things FRKKMKN, accustomed to the freedom 
of the woods ; but as trailers of a predatory foe — ready to en- 
dure fatigue, hunger, physical suffering, careless of wounds, care- 
less of death— they were matchless. They were no less ready 
to dare any and all odds, in hand-to-hand fights, upon " The 
Shining River;" or under the lintels of their cabins, if a little 
band of daring warriors crept past the frontier forts, to strike 
these outlying faims, and gather the blood-red trophies which 
were to give them rank in the tribes. 

In the record of individual daring. Wheeling has commem- 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS . 75 

orated a gallant deed by naming the bluff above Wheeling 
Creek McCiilloch's Leap. 

In September of 1782 Fort Henry was besieged by some five 
hundred Indians, commanded by Simon Girty, who figures in 
the history of the time as a renegade more cruel than the 
Indians he led. In the history of the relief of the garrison, this 
incident is given : 

" About daybreak Major Samuel McCulloch, with forty mounted men 
from Short Creek, came to the relief of the little garrison. The gate was 
thrown open, and McCuUoch's men, though closely beset by the Indians, 
entered in safety, but McCulloch himself was not permitted to pass the 
gateway ; the Indians crowded around him and separated him from his 
party. After several ineffectual attempts to force his way to the gate, he 
wheeled about and galloped with the swiftness of a deer in the direction of 
WheeHng Hill. 

"The Indians might easily have killed him, but they cherished towards 
him an almost frenzied hatred ; for he had participated in so many en- 
counters that almost every warrior personally knew him. To take him 
alive, and glut their full revenge by the most fiendish tortures, was their 
object, and they made almost superhuman exertions to capture him. He 
put spurs to his horse and soon became completely hemmed in on three 
sides, and the fourth was almost a perpendicular precipice of one hundred 
and fifty feet descent, with Wheeling Creek at its base. Supporting his rifle 
on his left hand, and carefully adjusting his reins with the other, he urged 
his horse to the brink of the bluff, and then made the leap which decided 
his fate. The next moment the noble steed, still bearing his intrepid rider 
in safety, was at the foot of the precipice. McCulloch immediately dashed 
across the creek and was soon beyond the reach of the Indians, 

" After the escape of Major McCulloch the Indians concentrated at the 
foot of the hill, and soon after set fire to all the houses and fences outside 
of the fort, and killed about three hundred head of cattle belonging to the 
settlers. They then raised the siege and took up the line of march to some 
other theater of action. 

"As the reader will very naturally desire to learn the fate of Major 
McCulloch after his almost miraculous escape from the Indians, some 



76 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

account of the manner of his death may be properly introduced in 
this place. 

"Not long after the siege of Fort Henry, indications of Indians 
having been noticed by some of the settlers, Major McCulloch and his 
brother John mounted their horses and left Van Metre's fort to ascertain 
the correctness of the report. They crossed Short Creek, and continued in 
the direction of Wheeling, but inclining towards the river. They scouted 
closely, but cautiously, and not discovering any such 'signs' as had been 
stated, descended to the river bottom at a point on the farm subsequently 
owned by Alfred P. Woods, about two m.iles above Wheeling. They then 
passed up the river to the mouth of Short Creek, and thence up Girty's Point 
in the direction of Van Metre's. Not discovering any indications of the 
enemy, the brothers were riding leisurely along, when, a short distance 
beyond the 'Point,' a deadly discharge of rifles took place, killing Major 
Samuel McCulloch instantly. His brother John escaped, but his horse was 
killed. Immediately mounting that of his brother he made off to give the 
alarm. As yet no enemy had been seen ; but, turning in his saddle after 
riding fifty yards, the path was filled with Indians, and one fellow was seen 
in the act of scalping the unfortunate major. Quick as thought the rifle 
of John was at his shoulder ; an instant later and the savage was rolling in 
the agonies of death. John escaped to the fort unhurt, with the exception 
of a slight wound of his hip. 

" On the following day a party of men from Van Metre's went out and 
gathered up the mutilated remains of Major McCulloch. The savages had 
disemboweled him, but the viscera all remained except the heart. Some 
years subsequent to this melancholy affair, an Indian, who had been one 
of the party on this occasion, told some whites that the heart of Major 
McCulloch had been divided and eaten by the party. 'This was done,' said 
he, 'that we be bold, like Major McCulloch.'" 

To define the times it is necessary to insist upon the fact that 
the "Law of the Border" was the law oj retaliation. The inci- 
dent just given, and the crime chronicled here, are proofs which 
show both sides of this question. 

" The Moravian Indians consisted chiefly of Delawares and Mohicans, 
who had been converted to Christianity through the zeal and influence of 



EARL V SETTLEMENTS. 77 

the Moravian missionaries. They had four towns on the Upper Mus- 
kingum, in the hne of travel between the nearest point on the Ohio River 
and Upper Sandusky, the home of the Delawares and other warHke tribes. 
The Moravian Indians were always friendly toward the whites. During the 
whole of the Revolutionary War they had remained neutral, or if they took 
part, it was in favor of the Americans, advising them of the approach of 
hostile Indians, and rendering other kindly offices. For ten 3^ears of border 
strife they had lived in peace and quietness, but at length became objects 
of suspicion to both whites and savages. The}- were, it may be said, be- 
tween two fires. While passing to and fro, the hostile parties would compel 
them to furnish provisions. It is not surprising, therefore, that they should 
have fallen a sacrifice to one or the other. 

"It happened that early in Februar}-, 1782, a part}^ of Indians from San- 
dusky penetrated the white settlements and committed numerous depreda- 
tions. Of the families which fell beneath the murderous stroke of these 
savages was that of David Wallace, consisting of himself, wife, and six chil- 
dren, and at the same time a man named Carpenter was taken prisoner. 
The early date of this visitation induced the whites to believe that the 
depredators had wintered with the Moravians, and they at once resolved on 
executing summary vengeance. About the ist of March a body of eighty 
or ninety men gathered at Mingo Bottom, a few miles below the present 
town of Steubenville, Ohio. The second day's march brought them within 
a short distance of one of the Moravian towns (of which there were four), 
and they encamped for the night. . 

"The victims received warning of their danger, but took no measures 
to escape, believing that the}' had nothing to fear from the Americans. On 
the arrival of an advanced party of sixteen men they professed peace and 
good-will to the Moravians, and informed them that they had come to take 
them to Fort Pitt for safety. The Indians surrendered, delivering up their 
arms, even their hatchets, on being promised that everything should be 
restored to them on their arrival at Pittsburg. By persuasion of some and 
driving of others, the inhabitants of two or three of the towns had been 
brought together and bound without resistance. A council of war was then 
held to decide their fate. The commandant. Colonel David Williamson, at 
the suggestion of his officers, then put the question to his men in form, 
" Whether the Moravian Indians should be taken prisoners to Pittsburg or 
put to death ?" and requested that all who were in favor of saving their 



78 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

lives should step out of the line, and form a second rank. On this sixteen 
men stepped out, and formed themselves into a second line. The fearful 
determination of putting the Moravians to death was thus shown. 

" Most of those opposed to this diabolical resolution protested in the 
name of high Heaven against the atrocious act, and called God to witness 
that they were innocent of the blood of these people ; yet the majority re- 
mained unmoved, and some of them were even in favor of burning them 
alive. But it was at length decided that they should be scalped in cold 
blood, and the Indians were told to prepare for their fate. They were led 
into buildings, in one of which the men, and in the other the women and 
children, were confined like sheep for the slaughter. They passed the night 
in praying and exhorting one another, and singing hymns of praise to God. 

" When the morning arrived for the purpose of slaughter, two houses 
were selected, one for the men and the other for the women and children. 
The victims were then bound two and two together, led into the slaughter- 
houses, and there scalped and murdered. The number of the slain, accord- 
ing to the Moravian account (for many of them had made their escape), was 
ninety-six. Of these, sixty-two were grown persons, one-third of whom 
were women ; the remaining thirty-four were children. 

"After the work of death had been finished and the plunder secured, 
all the buildings in the towns were set on fire. A rapid retreat to the 
settlements concluded this deplorable campaign." 

" In justice to the memory of Colonel Williamson," says Doddridge, 
" I have to say, that although at that time very young, I was personally ac- 
quainted with him, and from my recollection of his conversation, I say, 
with confidence, that he was a brave man, but not cruel. He would meet 
an enemy in battle and fight like a soldier, but not murder a prisoner. 
Had he possessed the authority of a superior officer in a regular army, I 
do not believe that a single Moravian Indian would have lost his life ; but 
he possessed no such authority. He was only a militia officer, who could 
advise, but not command. His only fault was that of too easy compliance 
with popular opinion and popular prejudice. On this account his memory 
has been loaded with unmerited reproach. 

" Should it be asked. What sort of people composed this band of mur- 
derers ? I answer, they were not all miscreants or vagabonds ; many of 
them were men of the first standing in the country. Many of them had 
recently lost relations by the hands of the savage, and were burning with 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 79 

revenge. They cared little on whom they wreaked their vengeance, so 
they were Indians. 

" When attacked by our people, although the Moravians might have de- 
fended themselves, they did not. They never fired a single shot. They 
were prisoners, and had been promised protection. Every dictate of justice 
required that their lives should be spared. It was, therefore, an atrocious 
and unqualified murder." 

" The object of the campaign which succeeded was twofold : First, to 
complete the work of murdering and plundering the Moravians at their 
new establishment on the Sandusky ; and secondly, to destroy the Wyandot 
towns on the same river. It w^as the resolution of all concerned in this ex- 
pedition not to spare the life of any Indian that might fall into their hands, 
friend or foe, man, woman, or child. But, as will be seen in the sequel, the 
result was widely different from that of the Moravian campaign of the pre- 
ceding March. 

"It would seem that the long continuance of this Indian war had 
greatly demoralized the early settlers, and being prompted by an indiscrim- 
inate thirst for revenge, they were prepared to go to almost any extreme of 
barbarity. 

"On the 25th of May, 1782, four hundred and eighty men mustered at 
Mingo Bottom and preceeded to elect their commander. The choice fell 
upon Colonel William Crawford, who accepted the command with some de- 
gree of reluctance. 

" The army marched along ' Williamson's Trail,' until they arrived at 
the ruins of the upper Moravian town, in the fields, belonging to which 
there was still plenty of corn on the stalks, with which their horses were 
fed during the night. 

" Shortly after the army halted at this place, two Indians were discov- 
ered by some men who had walked out of the camp. Three shots w^ere 
fired at one of them, but without effect. As soon as the news reached the 
camp, more than one-half of the men rushed out, without command, and in 
the most tumultuovis manner, to see what had happened. From that time 
Colonel Crawford felt a presentiment of the defeat which followed. 

" The truth is, that notwithstanding the secrecy and dispatch with which 
the enterprise had been gotten up, the Indians were beforehand with the 
whites. They saw the rendezvous on the Mingo Bottom, and knew the 
number and destination of the troops. They visited every encampment 



8o THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

immediately after the troops had left, and saw from their writing on the 
trees and scraps of paper that ' no quarter ' was to be given to any Indian, 
whether man, woman, or child. 

" Nothing of importance happened during their march until the 6th of 
June, when their guide conducted them to the site of the Moravian villages 
on one of the upper branches of the Sandusky River. From this retreat 
the Christian Indians had lately been driven away by the Wyandots to the 
Scioto, and here the army of Colonel Crawford, instead of finding Indians 
and plunder, met with nothing but vestiges of ruin and desolation. 

" In this dilemma what was to be done? The officers held a council, in 
which it was determined to march one day longer in the direction of Upper 
Sandusky, and if they should not reach the town in the course of a day, to 
make a retreat with all possible speed. 

" The march was commenced the next morning, through the plains of 
Sandusky, and continued until two o'clock, when the advance guard was 
attacked and driven in by the Indians, who were discovered in large num- 
bers in the high grass with which the place was covered. The Indian army 
was at that moment about entering a large piece of wood almost entirely 
surrounded by plains ; but in this they were disappointed by a rapid move- 
ment of the whites. The battle then commenced by a heavy fire from both 
sides. From a partial possession of the woods, which they had gained at 
the outset of the battle, the Indians were soon dislodged. They then at- 
tempted to gain a small skirt of wood on the right flank of Colonel Craw- 
ford, but were prevented from so doing by Major Leet, who at the time com- 
manded the right wing. The firing was heavy and incessant until dark, 
when it ceased, and both armies lay on their arms during the night. 

" In the morning Colonel Crawford's army occupied the battle-ground 
of the preceding day. The Indians made no attack during the day until 
late in the evening, but were seen in large bodies traversing the plains 
in various directions. Some of them appeared to be carrying off the dead 
and wounded. 

" In the morning of this day a council of officers was held, and a re- 
treat was resolved on as the only means of saving the army, the Indians 
appearing to increase in .numbers every hour. 

" During the day preparations were made for a retreat by burying the 
dead, burning fires over the graves to prevent discovery, and preparing 
means for carrying off the wounded. The retreat was to commence in the 



EARL Y SE TTLEMENTS. 8 1 

course of the night. The Indians, however, became apprised of the intended 
retreat, and about sundown attacked the army with great force and fury, in 
ever}' direction except that of Sandusky. When the line of march was 
formed and the retreat commenced, Colonel Crawford's guides prudently 
took the direction of Sandusky, which afforded the only opening in the In- 
dian lines and the only chance of concealment. After marching about a 
mile in this direction the army wheeled about to the left, and by a circuit- 
ous route, gained before day the trail by which they came. They continued 
their march the whole of the next da}^ without further anno3^ance than the 
firing of a few distant shots by the Indians at the rear-guard, which slightly 
wounded two or three men. 

" But several parties, supposing that they could more effectually secure 
their safety by breaking off from the main army in small numbers, were 
pursued by the Indians and nearly all of them slain. 

" At the commencement of the retreat Colonel Crawford placed himself 
at the head of the ami}-, and continued there until they had gone about a 
quarter of a mile, w^hen, missing his son, John Crawford, his son-in-law, 
Major Harrison, and his nephews, Major Rose and William Crawford, he 
halted and called for them as the line passed, but without finding them. 
After the army had passed him he was unable to overtake it, owing to the 
weariness of his horse. Falling in company with Dr. Knight and two 
others, they traveled all night, to avoid the pursuit of the Indians. 

" On the next day they fell in with Captain John Biggs and Lieutenant 
Ashley, the latter of whom was wounded. Two others were in company 
with Biggs and Ashley. They encamped together the succeeding night. 
On the next day, while on their march, they were attacked by a party of In- 
dians, who made Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight prisoners. 

" ' The colonel and I,' says Dr. Knight, ' were then taken to the Indian 
camp, which w^as about half a mile from the place where we were captured. 
On Sunday evening five Delawares, who had posted themselves at some 
distance further on the road, brought back to the camp where we lay Cap- 
tain Biggs's and Lieutenant Ashley's scalps, with an Indian scalp which 
Captain Biggs had taken in the field of action. They also brought in Biggs's 
horse and mine. They told us the two other men got away from them. 

'* ' Monday morning, the loth of June, we were paraded to march to 
Sandusky, about thirty-three miles distant. They had eleven prisoners of 
us and four scalps, the Indians being seventeen in number. 



82 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

" * Colonel Crawford was very desirous to see a certain Simon Girty, 
who lived among the Indians, and was on this account permitted to go to 
town the same night, with two w^arriors to guard him, they having orders 
at the same time to pass by the place where the colonel had turned out his 
horse, that they might if possible find him. The rest of us were taken as 
far as the old town (Sandusky), which w^as within eight miles of the new. 

'"Tuesday morning, the nth. Colonel Crawford was brought out of 
town on purpose to be marched in with the other prisoners. I asked the 
colonel if he had seen Mr. Girty. He told me he had, and that Girty had 
promised to do everything in his power for him, but that the Indians 
were very much enraged against the prisoners, particularly Captain Pipe, 
one of the chiefs ; he likewise told me that Girty had informed him that 
his son-in-law, Colonel Harrison, and his nephew, William Crawford, were 
made prisoners by the Shawnees, but had been pardoned. This Captain 
Pipe had come from the towns about an hour before Colonel Crawford, 
and had painted all the prisoners' faces black. 

*"As he was painting me, he told me I should go to the Sliawnee 
towns* and see my friends. When the colonel arrived he painted him 
black also ; told him he was glad to see him, and that he would have him 
shaved when he came to see his friends at the Wyandot town. Whefi 
we marched, the colonel and I were kept between Pipe and Wingenim, 
the two Delaware chiefs ; the other nine prisoners were sent forward with 
a party of Indians. As we went along we saw four of the prisoners lying 
by the path, tomahawked and scalped ; some of them were at the distance 
of half a mile from the others. When we arrived within half a mile of 
the place where the colonel w^as executed, we overtook the five prisoners 
that remained alive. The Indians had caused them to sit down on the 
ground; also the colonel and myself at some distance from them. I was 
then given in charge of an Indian fellow to be taken -to the Shaw- 
nee towns. 

"*In the place where we were now made to sit down, there w^ere a 
number of squaws and boys, who fell on the five prisoners and tomahawked 
them. There was a certain John McKinley among the prisoners, formerly 
an officer in the 13th Virginia Regiment, whose head an old squaw cut 
off. The young Indian fellows came often where the colonel and I were, 
and dashed the scalps in our faces. We were then conducted along 

* Pickaway Plains, on the Scioto River. 



EARL Y SE TTLEMENTS. 83 

towards the place where the colonel was afterwards executed. When we 
came within half a mile of it, Simon Girty met us, with several Indians 
on horseback. He spoke to the colonel ; but as I w^as about one hundred 
and fifty yards behind, I could not hear what passed between them. 

" 'Almost every Indian we met struck us with fist or sticks, Girty 
waited till I was brought up, and then asked: "Is that the doctor?" I an- 
swered, "Yes," and went toward him, reaching out my hand; but he bid 
me begone, and called me a damned rascal ; upon which the fellow who 
had me in charge pulled me along, Girty rode up after me, and told me 
that I was to go to the Shawnee towns. 

"'When we came to the fire, the colonel was stripped naked, ordered 
to sit down by the fire, and then they beat him with sticks and fists. 
Presently after I was treated in the same manner. 

" ' They then tied a rope to the foot of a post, about fifteen feet high, 
bound the colonel's hands behind his back, and fastened the rope to the 
ligature between his wrists. The rope was long enough either for him 
to sit down or walk round the post once or twice, and return the same 
way. The colonel then called to Girty, and asked if they intended to burn 
him? Girty answered, "Yes," The colonel said he would take it all pa- 
tiently. Upon this Captain Pipe, a Delaware chief, made a speech to the 
Indians, consisting of about thirty or forty men, and sixty or seventy 
squaws and boys, 

" ' When the speech was finished, they all yelled a hideous and hearty 
assent to what had been said. The Indian men then took up their guns 
and shot powder into the colonel's body, from his feet as far up as his 
neck, I think not less than seventy loads were discharged upon his 
naked body. They then crowded about him, and to the best of my obser- 
vation, cut off his ears. When the throng had dispersed a little, I saw 
the blood running from both sides of his head. 

" ' The fire was about six or seven yards from the post to which the 
colonel was tied ; it was made of small hickory poles, burnt quite through 
in the middle, each end of the poles remaining about six feet in length. 
Three or four Indians, by turns, would take up individually one of these 
burning pieces of wood and apply it to his naked body, already burnt 
black with powder. These tormentors presented themselves on every side 
of him, so that whichever way he ran round the post they met him with 
the burning fagots and poles. Some of the squaws took broad boards, 

6 



84 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

upon which they would put a quantity of burning coals and hot embers 
and throw them on him, so that in a short time he had nothing but coals 
of fire and hot ashes to walk upon.' 

'"In the midst of these extreme tortures, he called to Simon Girty, 
and begged him to shoot hini ; but Girty making no answer, he called 
him again. Girty then, by way of derision, told the colonel he had no 
gun, and at the same time turning about to an Indian who was behind 
him, laughed heartily, and by all his gestures seemed delighted at the 
horrid scene. 

" ' Girty then came up to me and bade me prepare for death. He 
said, however, " I was not to die at that place, but to be burnt at the 
Shawnee towns. He swore by G— d I need not expect to escape death, 
but should suffer it in all its horrors." 

"'Colonel Crawford, at this period of his suffering, besought the 
Almighty to have mercy on his soul, spoke very low, and bore his tor- 
ments with the most manly fortitude. He continued, in all the extrem- 
ities of pain, for an hour and three-quarters or two hours longer, as near 
as I can judge, when, at last, being almost spent, he lay down on his 
belly. They then scalped him, and repeatedly threw the scalp in my face, 
telling me, " That is your great captain's." An old squaw (whose appear- 
ance every way answered the idea people entertained of the devil) got a 
board, and took a parcel of coals and ashes and laid them on his back 
and head after he had been scalped. He then raised upon his feet and 
began to walk round the post. They next put a burning stick to him, but 
he seemed more insensible to pain than before. After he expired, his 
body was thrown into the fire and consumed to ashes.' " 

One of the earliest settlers was David Morgan, a man of 
great energy of character and sterling worth. He was a near 
relative of General Morgan, of Revolutionary memory. 

■ "At the time we speak of, Mr. Morgan was living near Prickett's Fort, 
about twelve miles above INIorgantown and close to the jNIonongahela River. 
He was then sixty years of age, and for some days had been slightly in- 
disposed. Early in April, 1779, he desired two of his children, Stephen, six- 
teen years of age, and Sarah, about fourteen, to feed the stock at his farm, 
distant about one mile on the opposite side of the river. This he did in 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS, 85 

consequence of feeling worse that morning than usual. No Indians had 
yet been seen in the neighborhood, and, of course, he considered all per- 
fectly safe. As the weather was fine, the brother and sister concluded to 
remain and prepare a piece of ground for melons. Soon after they left the 
fort — for they were then at the stockade — Mr. Morgan lay down, and 
shortly falling to sleep dreamed that he saw the children walking before 
him scalped. This vision awoke him, and finding upon inquiry that the 
children had not returned, he became uneasy and started immediately in 
hunt of them. Approaching the premises, he beheld his children busily 
engaged in the manner already indicated. 

" Seating himself upon a log close at hand, Morgan watched his chil- 
dren for some time, when suddenly he saw emerge from the house two In- 
dians, who moved rapidly up toward Stephen and his sister. Fearing to 
alarm the children, INIorgan cautiously warned them of their danger and 
told them to go at once to the fort. They instantly obeyed, and the Indians, 
discovering their movements, gave their accustomed whoop and started 
in pursuit. Morgan, having hitherto escaped their attention, now arose, 
and returning their shout caused the savages to seek behind trees instant 
protection. 

** Knowing that the chances for a fair fight were almost hopeless, 
Morgan thought to escape by running, and so manage as to keep the trees be- 
tween himself and the enemy. In this, however, he was mistaken. Im- 
paired health -and the infirmities of age disabled him from keeping long 
beyond the reach of the fleet and athletic warriors. Finding, after a run 
of some two hundred yards, that the savages were rapidly gaining on him, 
he determined to shoot one and take his chances with the other. Turning 
to fire, both Indians sprang behind trees, and Morgan did the same ; but 
finding the tree he first gained too small to protect his person, he quitted it 
and made for another, which was reached in safety. 

" One of the Indians, hoping to get nearer his intended victim, ran to 
the tree which Morgan had left, but finding it too small, threw himself be- 
hind a log close at hand. This, however, did not conceal him entirely, 
which Morgan noticing, instantly fired, and shot the savage through the 
part exposed. Feeling himself mortally wounded, with more than Spartan 
fortitude the Indian drew his knife and inflicted two deep stabs upon his 
breast. To him death had no terrors, save as dealt by the hand of his 
white antagonist. 



86 ' THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

" The heroic old man having thus effectually disposed of one of his 
pursuers, again resorted to flight. The chances were now desperate, as the 
Indian had the double advantage of tomahawk and rifle. Running fifty or 
sixty yards, he "glanced hurriedly over his shoulder just in time to see the 
savage ready to fire. Jumping to one side, the ball passed harmlessly by, 
and the two felt that the combat must be brought to close quarters. With 
all the fury of his nature the savage rushed upon his adversary with loud 
yells and uplifted tomahawk. Morgan prepared to meet him with his gun, 
but the savage aimed a blow with his tomahawk with such force and effect 
as to knock the rifle from Morgan's grasp, and cut two of the fingers from 
his left hand. They now clinched, and the combat became equal, except the 
savage was the younger and much more powerful of the two. Frantic at 
the loss of his companion and his own ill success, he fought with a despera- 
tion rarely known in a single combat. Morgan, on the other part, inspirited 
b}^ the success which had thus far attended him, nerved his arm and strung 
every muscle to the conflict, resolved to kill his combatant or sell his life 
as dearly as possible. Our hero in his younger days had been a most ex- 
pert wrestler, and was thus enabled with ease to throw the Indian ; but the 
latter, more active and powerful, readily turned him. With a yell of exulta- 
tion the savage now held his adversary down and began to feel for his knife. 
Morgan saw the movement, and well knew all would be over if the savage 
got possession of it. 

" The Indian was prevented getting the knife by a woman's apron, 
which he had wrapped around his body in such a manner as to confine the 
handle. Whilst endeavoring to extricate it Morgan got one of the Indian's 
thumbs between his teeth, and so effectually ground it that the poor wretch 
was sadly disconcerted, and more than once screamed with pain. Finally 
he grasped his knife, but so close to the blade that Morgan, noticing it, 
caught the end of the handle and drew it through the Indian's hand, cutting 
it severely. The savage was now literally hors de combat, and, springing 
to his feet, endeavored to get away ; but the resolute Morgan, not yet hav- 
ing done with him, held on to the thumb until he had inflicted a mortal 
thrust in the side of the enemy. Letting go, the Indian sank almost life- 
less to the ground, and Morgan made his way to the fort." 

Captain Samuel Brady resided at one time in Wellsbiirg. 
He was tall, rather slender, and very active. He usually wore 



EARL Y SE TTLEMENTS. 87 

instead of a hat, a black handkerchief around his head. From 
his pecuHar appearance, he was well known to the Indians. 

"A party of Indians having made an inroad into the Sewickley settle- 
ment, committing barbarous murders and carrying off some prisoners, 
Brady set off in pursuit with only five men and his pet Indian. He came 
up with them, and discovered that they were encamped on the banks of 
the Mahoning. Having reconnoitered their position, Brady posted his 
men, and in the deepest silence awaited the break of day, when the In- 
dians arose and stood around their fires. At a given signal seven rifles 
cracked, and five Indians were dead. The remaining Indians instantly 
disappeared. 

" Brady being out with his party on one occasion, had reached Slip- 
pery Rock Creek, a branch of the Beaver, without seeing signs of Indians. 
Here, however, he came on an Indian trail in the evening, which he fol- 
lowed till dark, without overtaking the Indians. The next morning he 
renewed his pursuit, and overtook them while they were engaged at their 
morning meal. Unfortunately for him another party of Indians were in 
his rear. They had fallen upon his trail and pursued him, doubtless with 
as much ardor as had characterized his own pursuit. At the moment he 
fired upon the Indians in his front, he was in turn fired upon by those in 
his rear. He was now between two fires, and vastly outnumbered. Two 
of his men fell, his tomahawk was shot from his side, and the battle yell 
was given by the party in his rear, and loudly returned and repeated by 
those in his front. There was no time for hesitation, no safety in delay, 
no chance for successful defense in their present position. Brady ran to- 
wards the creek. He was known by many, if not by^ all of them ; and 
there were the scores to be settled between him and them. They knew 
the country well ; he did not, and from his running towards the creek 
they were certain of taking him prisoner. The creek was, for a long dis- 
tance above and below the point he was approaching, washed in its chan- 
nel to a great depth. In the certain expectation of catching him there, 
the private soldiers of his party were disregarded ; and throwing down 
their guns and drawing their tomahawks, all pressed forward to seize their 
victim. Quick of eye, fearless of heart, and determined never to be a 
captive to the Indians, Brady comprehended their object and his only 
chance for escape the moment he saw the creek; and by one mighty effort 



88 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

of courage and activity, defeated -the one and effected the other. He 
sprang across the abyss of waters, and stood rifle in hand on the oppo- 
site bank in safety. As quick as lightning his rifle was primed, for it was 
his invariable practice in loading, to prime first. The next minute the 
powder-horn was at the gun's muzzle ; when, as he was in this act^ a large 
Indian, who had been foremost in the pursuit, came to the opposite bank, 
and witli the manliness of a generous foe who scorns to undervalue the 
qualities of an enemy, said, in a loud voice and tolerable English : ' Blady 
make good jump.' 

" His leap was about twenty-three feet, and the water was twenty feet 
deep. Brady's next effort was to gather up his men. They immediately 
commenced their homeward march, and returned to Pittsburg about half 
defeated. Three Indians had been seen to fall from the fire they gave 
them at breakfast." 

Another famous border hero was Lewis Wetzel, the son of 
John Wetzel, a German, wlio settled on Big Wheeling Creek, 
about fourteen miles from the Ohio River, and was killed by 
the Indians in 1777, when Lewis was about twenty-three years 
of age. The education of Lewis, like most of his contem- 
poraries, was that of the hunter and warrior. When a boy, he 
adopted the practice of loading and firing his rifle as he ran. 
On account of his father's death, he and his brothers, of whom 
he had five, vowed sleepless vengeance against the whole 
Indian race. 

" During the life-time of his father, when he was about thirteen years 
of age, Lewis was taken prisoner b}^ the Indians, together with his brother 
Jacob, about eleven years old. Before he was taken he received a slight 
wound in the breast from a bullet, which carried off" a small piece of his 
breast-bone. The second night after they were taken, the Indians en- 
camped at Big Lick, twenty miles from the river, on the waters of Mc- 
Mechen's Creek. The boys were not confined. After the Indians had 
fallen asleep, Lewis whispered to his brother Jacob that he must get up 
and go back home with him. Jacob at first objected, but afterwards got 
up and went along with him. When they had gone about one hundred 



EARL Y SE TTLEMENTS. 89 

yards from the camp, they sat down on a log. 'Well,' said Lewis, 'we can 
not go home barefooted ; I will go back and get a pair of moccasins for 
each of us,' and accordingly did so, and returned. After sitting a little 
longer, 'Now,' said he, 'I will go back and get father's gun, and then we 
will start.' This he effected. They had not traveled far on the trail by 
which they came before they heard the Indians coming after them. It 
was a moonlight night. When the Indians came prett}- near them, they 
stepped aside into the bushes, let them pass, then fell into the rear and 
traveled on. The next day they reached Wheeling in safety, crossing from 
the Indian shore to Wheeling Island on a raft of their own making. By 
this time Lewis had been almost spent from his wound. 

"Belmont County, Ohio, was the scene of several of the most daring 
adventures of this far-famed borderer. Once while hunting, Wetzel fell 
in with a young man who lived on Dunkard Creek, and was persuaded to 
accompany him to his home. On their arrival they found the house in 
ruins and all the famil}^ murdered, except a young woman who had been 
bred with them, and to whom the young man was ardently attached. She 
was taken alive, as was found b}- examining the trail of the enem}^ who 
were three Indians and a white renegade. Burning with revenge, they 
followed the trail, until opposite the mouth of Captiua, where the enemy 
had crossed. They swam the stream, and discovered the Indian camp, around 
the fires of which lay the eneni}- in careless repose. The young woman 
was apparently unhurt, but was making much moaning and lamentation. 
The young man, hardly able to restrain his rage, was for firing and rushing 
instantly upon them. Wetzel, more cautious, told him to wait until daylight, 
when there would be a better chance of success in killing the whole party. 
After dawn the Indians prepared to depart. The young man selecting the 
w^hite renegade, and Wetzel the Indian, they both fired simultaneousl}-, 
wdth fatal effect. The young man rushed forward, knife in hand, to re- 
lieve the mistress of his affections, while Wetzel reloaded and pursued 
the two sumving Indians, who had taken to the woods until they could 
ascertain the number of their enemies. Wetzel, as soon as he was dis- 
covered, discharged his rifle at random, in order to draw them from their 
covert. The ruse took effect, and taking to his heels, he loaded as he 
ran, and suddenly wheeling about, discharged his rifle through the body 
of his nearest and unsuspecting enemy. The remaining Indian, seeing 
the fate of his companion, and that his enemy's gun was unloaded, rushed 



90 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

forward with all energy, the prospect of prompt revenge being fairly be- 
fore him. Wetzel led him on, dodging from tree to tree, until his rifle 
was again read}-, when suddenly turning, he fired, and his remaining en- 
emy fell dead at his feet. After taking their scalps, Wetzel and his friend, 
with their rescued captive, returned in safety to the settlement. 

"In the year 1782, after Crawford's defeat, Lewis went with a Thomas 
Mills, who had been in the campaign, to get his horse, which he had left 
near the place where St. Clairsville now stands. At the Indian springs, two 
miles from St. Clairsville, on the Wheeling road, they were met by about 
forty Indians, who were in pursuit of the stragglers from the campaign. 
The Indians and the white men discovered each other about the same mo- 
ment. Lewis fired first and killed an Indian, while the Indians wounded 
Mills in the heel, who was soon overtaken and killed. Four of the Indians 
then singled out, dropped their guns, and pursued Wetzel. Wetzel loaded his 
rifle as he ran. After running about half a mile, one of the Indians having 
gotten within eight or ten steps of him, Wetzel wheeled round and shot him 
down, ran and loaded his gun as before. After running about three-quarters 
of a mile further, a second Indian came so close to him that, when he 
turned to fire, the Indian caught the muzzle of his gun, and, as he expressed 
it, 'he and the Indian had a severe wring.' He, however, succeeded in 
bringing the muzzle to the Indian's breast, and killed him on the spot. By 
this time he, as w^ell as the Indian, was prett}- well tired out ; yet the pursuit 
w^as continued b}' the two remaining Indians. Wetzel, as before, loaded his 
gun and stopped several times during this latter chase ; when he did so the 
Indians treed themselves. After going something more than a mile, Wetzel 
took advantage of a little open piece of ground over which the Indians 
were passing, a short distance behind him, to make a sudden stop for the 
purpose of shooting the foremost, who got behind a little sapling which 
was too small to cover his body. Wetzel shot and broke his thigh. The 
wound, in the issue, proved fatal. The last of the Indians then gave a little 
yell, and said, ' No catch that man, gun always loaded,' and gave up the 
chase, glad, no doubt, to get off with his life." 

In 1779 Stephen Collins, of Halifax Count}^ Virginia, "long 
hunter of deer-skins," who had for years followed his uncertain 
calling in the wild region west of the Blue Ridge, with five of his 
brothers (only one unmarried) and a brother-in-law, removed to 



EARL } ' SE TTLEMENTS. g i 

Kentucky. The writer has often heard his son (Judge Joel Col- 
hns, of Oxford, Ohio), tell the storj' of the transit over the 
mountains/-'' Two feather-beds, securely and tightly rolled, were 
slung on a horse and so arranged, one on each side, that the 
larger children could climb on to the secure perch when weary 
or footsore from the long march. The gentlest horses had 
pack-saddles made of two large split hampers, in each of which 
two children fitted. The pack-horses of rougher tempers car- 
ried corn-meal, bacon, salt, camp furniture, and the clothing of 
the entire party. In addition there was a horse for each woman. 
The five families had over twenty horses and some fifty head of 
cattle. The baggage-train was packed for the day's march while 
the women dressed the children and cooked the breakfast. The 
cattle were driven in the van, and the long train of horses came 
on in single file, two of the men walking behind to rearrange 
breaks and pick up an}- mischievous urchin who managed to slip 
out of the hampers. The party of brothers first settled at Bow- 
man's Station, on Dick's Creek, which they reached "in fairly 
good condition, although for most of the journey they had no 
meat except such game as the hunters could find, and to find 
an 3^ they had sometimes to -make long excursions away from 
the rough trail upon which the cattle and horses must be kept." 
From the time of their arrival in Kentucky they "dressed in 
deer-skins, made their beds of buffalo-skins stretched on rough 
wood frames, with the woolly side up, and had for covering 



'■'The stalwart figure and genial, kindly face of the " Old Judge '^ will be remembered by 
every student of Miami University, where, for so many years, he was custodian of the build- 
ings and superintendent of the grounds and lands In his youth a good soldier and a daring 
scout, from his sixteenth year he was in every battle where the collected force of Kentucky 
fought the Indians. He lived through the "hard times" of the West, a rough, rugged life 
of want and self-denial ; but the metal in the man was so fine that he had brought through it 
a character fashioned for all noble uses upon the anvil of adversity. 



92 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

a second buffalo-skin with the wool turned down." Their shirts 
w^ere made from a species of nettle which were beaten to a Hnt 
that could be spun into yarn. 

Indians were constantly prowling about the station, and occa- 
sionally a messenger or a hunter was shot and scalped near the 
fort. The Collins families had not been long in Kentucky before 
the brothers were called out with the militia, under General George 
Rogers Clark, to " make a raid into the Indian country on the 
north of the Ohio, and put down with the strong hand the skulk- 
ing varmints who were murdering peaceable settlers." The 
special provocation was the capture of Alexander McConnell, an 
express-rider from Lexington. 

"The Indians shot his horse under him, tied his hands behind him, and 
drove him at a run to their hiding-place on the lyicking. A scouting party 
from the station found the dead horse, and so we knew he was a prisoner. 
I was only a little fellow about eight years old, but I remember yet the 
rumpus' at the station the week 'after his capture, when some of our men, 
who were in the field near by, saw a wretched object, with a few rags around 
him, coming towards them. They halted him with their rifles up at sight, 
when he called out, ' I am Alec McConnell.' I never can forget how the women 
and we youngsters run, and how we crowded around after he had some- 
thing to eat, to hear his story. He had been with them three days when he 
got away. That third night, when the Indians were sleeping, he managed to 
slip his hands out of the thongs (he had mighty small hands), then he 
untied his legs from the stakes to which they were fastened, and got hold 
of the Indians' guns. One by one he pulled them over to him. He put one 
gun on each knee, with the muzzles almost touching the heads of the two 
nearest to him ; then, as soon as he fired, he snatched up the loaded rifles 
one by one, and killed three more. He thought he marked some of the 
skunks that got away ; but they run so fast he was n't sure, and he had no 
time to lose looking, as they were all on the other side of the Ohio. He 
had to do his best to get over to this side before daylight. He picked out 
a splendid tomahawk and the best rifle, broke the locks of the others, and 
got back to the station without meeting either Indian or white man." 



EARLY SETTLEiMENTS. 93 

In 1780, when General George Rogers Clark called out the 
militia for a "defensive raid to the Indian villages," Stephen 
Collins and his brothers went with the Lexington company. 
Clark's command consisted of two regiments. One, commanded 
by Colonel Ben Logan, assembled at Bryant's Spring, eight miles 
from Lexington, and marched down the Licking to its mouth; 
the other, commanded by Colonel Wm. Linn, marched from the 
falls, up the Ohio to the Licking. The transportation of artil- 
lery, provisions, and military stores was in skiffs, under charge 
of Colonel George Slaughter, with one hundred and fifty troops, 
raised in Virginia. The entire force consisted of one thousand 
men. They crossed the Ohio, 2d of August, 1780, and marched 
to the Indian towns with a six-pound howitzer, for which a wa}- 
through the forest had to be opened. On the 6th they reached 
Chillicothe, on the Little Miami. The Indian town was aban- 
doned, and still burning. They arrived at Piqua, on the north 
bank of Mad River, on the 8th ; had a severe fight with the In- 
dians ; took the town, burnt it, and destroyed the growing corn. 
As Judge Collins told the story, Clark avoided an ambuscade by 
returning across the country by a different route, to their point 
of departure at the Licking. Soon after the Collins's return they 
moved to Lexington. 

Joel Collins's first school-master was John McKinney, better 
known in Kentucky as " Wildcat McKinney." He had been 
disabled in the fight at Point Pleasant, in 1774, where he was 
one of the Virginia riflemen. He was shot through both thighs, 
and fell. His party were driven a short distance, and he was 
left lying about half-way between the combatants, who fought 
Indian fashion, from the cover of a tree. McKinney made an 
effort to crawl back to the riflemen, when he was seen by an 



94 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Indian, and another shot shattered his left arm so badly that the 
splintered bone stuck in the bark of a paw-paw bush to which 
he was holding. The Indians made a rush with their toma- 
hawks, but the Virginians came to his relief. Beating back the 
Indians, they carried him off safely. In the last part of this 
hand-to-hand fray he had two ribs broken by the stroke of a 
tomahawk. Thinking his fighting days were over, he took up 
the occupation of a school-master and came out to Kentucky. 
One morning in June the women of the station were up very early 
milking the cows, when Mrs. Collins called to her husband : 

" Stephen ! Stephen ! run over to the school-house ; some- 
thing 's the matter with the master." 

Mr. Collins, with Joel at his heels, ran over without loss of 
time. The door was open, and Collins asked : '* What 's the 
matter?" McKinney sung out: "It's an ugly baste tryin' to 
kill me ; but I 've got him purty well whipped." And he went 
on plugging away with his lame left hand into the side of an 
animal which he held doubled up in his right arm, and pressed 
against the table, although its teeth were clinched in his breast 
a little below his throat. Mr. Collins did his best to help him, 
but he insisted: "Wait until I get to the door, so you can see how 
to take the pesky thing's teeth out of me breast-bone." It took 
all Mr. CoUins's knowledge of surgery to free the school-master. 
"Wildcat McKinney" moved from Kentucky to Missouri 
in 1820. 

Young Joel Collins began his career as an Indian fighter in 
1 79 1, in the expedition to the Indian towns on the Wabash. 
This gave him " a liking for the army," and he enlisted in the 
"pack-horse brigade," which was constantly on the march, tak- 
ing supplies to the advanced posts on the Miami. He was at 



EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 95 

Fort Hamilton when Little Turtle and his warriors struck the 
war-pole, and took the trail for Columbia. On their return the}^ 
made a night attack on the "pack-horse brigade" encampment. 
There was severe and close fighting until daylight, when the 
guns from the fort were effective, and the Indians retreated. 
During the fight one of his comrades was badl}^ wounded, and 
he would have been tomahawked and scalped had not Joel Col- 
lins brought him on his back to the shelter of the fort. To use 
the vernacular of the time, "he was a born soldier." Like the 
war-horse, " he smelleth the battle from afar," and the writer has 
often heard him say that " the deepest regret of his life was that 
he had not fought in the Revolution under Washington," a 
natural regret when one understands the times in w^hich he 
lived. For although the Western pioneers were out of the way 
of the fight when the Revolution began, for them to stay out of 
the fray was wholly impossible. The blood of the men who 
fought at Derry w^as in their veins ; and that blood never ran 
slowly or grew cold when burning powder scented the air. They 
were hundreds of miles away from the sea-board ; but here and 
there a solitary hunter crossed the mountain-chain alone to join 
the rebels under Washington; or little groups of two or three 
fell together by the w^ay, and marched steadily over the ridges 
and through the winding ravines, until, from the Blue Mountain 
Heights, they looked dowm upon the very center of the Old 
Dominion, that fair county of Albemarle, wdiich was the birth- 
place of the most resolute soldier and daring leader who ever 
headed a foray into the Indian country. 

" When the Independence of the Colonies was secured, but 
few of these frontiersmen had won through the battles and the 
winter at Valley Forge. None of the survivors were above 



96 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

want. This poverty of the soldiers was imposed by circum- 
stances. The times were in fault. Continental money was 
worthless. Six years of service left them nothing. Maimed, 
ragged, and foot-sore, men returned to the little farms, where 
the outlying fields were wastes, and only the patches of corn 
around the cabins told the story of how brave women had fought 
the battle of life for their children during the long years of self- 
dependence. To quote from a trustworthy historian of the time: 

"If want of provisions or other causes made a visit to a neighbour's 
necessary, a settler's wife must either take her children with her through 
the woods, or leave them unprotected, under the most fearful apprehen- 
sion that some mischief might befall them before her return. As bread 
and meat were scarce, milk was the principal dependence for the support 
of the family. One cow of each family was provided with a bell, which 
could be heard from half a mile to a mile, and in the mornings the 
mother placed herself in the most favorable position for listening to her 
cow-bell, which she knew as well as she did the voice of her child. She 
could detect her own even among a clamour of many other bells, thus man- 
ifesting a nicety of ear which, with cultivation, might have been envied 
by the best musicians. 

" If her children were small, she tied them in bed to prevent them from 
wandering, and to guard them from danger from fire and snakes ; then, 
guided by the tinkling of the bell, made her way through the tall meads, 
and across the ravines, until she found the object of her search ; happy 
on her return to find her children unharmed." 

To glance for a moment at the position of the River Clearings, 
we find that the settlements of the Scotch-Irish from Bedford, 
York Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with a few families directly 
from the North of Ireland, soon extended from the Monongahela 
to the Ohio. Their route was the barely practicable road called 
Braddock's trail. 

Uncertain of the boundaries of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 



EARLY SETTLE nrE NTS. 



97 



few applied for land-warrants, although Lord Dnnmore had 
opened offices for the granting of warrants within the bounds of 
what are now the four western counties of Pennsylvania. They 
were, however, afterwards recognized as actual settlers, and thus 
entitled to farms not exceeding four hundred acres. 

At the close of Poiitiac's War, in the fall of 1763-64, the 
stream of emigration was greatly enlarged. In the Historical 
Sketches of Western Presbyterianism, the author says: 

" It was a remarkable circumstance that between Mr. Smith's congre- 
gations and the Ohio, and along up and down the river for thirty or forty 
miles below Pittsburg, there was early settled, or ' squatted ' rather, a pe- 
culiar population, many of them from Eastern Virginia, lucll-suited from 
their habits and trai^iing as hunters, and from their adoption of the In- 
dian modes ofzvarfare, to fight ivith the savages, and to act as a life-guard, 
as a protecting cordon, to 3lr. Sm nil's people, and to the interior set- 
tlements. 

In counting them up by families, he mentions in the Life 
Guard, " the Bradys, the Wetzels, and the Foes'' then he goes on 
telling of "a glorious work of grace began and long continued 
in that vineyard which God had so strangely fenced around." 
He again singles out for special mention " Mr. Smith," whose 
"dress was alwa3^s neat and becoming. His voice was remarkable 
alike for the terrific and the pathetic (the italics are preserved not 
inserted), and as Dr. Kirkland said of the celebrated Fisher 
Ames, 'now like the thunder, and now like the musicof heaven,'" 
then he continues: "I never heard a man who could so com- 
pletely unbar the gates of hell, and make me look so far down 
into the dark, bottomless abyss." The historian, after further 
characterizing his pulpit hero as one who left " the cold ratioci- 
nations of logic far behind," grows facetiously comparative, and 
tells us of " old Colonel R — , of Virginia, who " used to say that 

7 



98 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

he liked that preacher best who could make him wivsh that he 
could creep into an augur-hole before the preacher was done," 
and he clinches this with another indorsement: "Robert Morris, 
the great financier, who saved the credit of his countr}^ and 
ruined his own, once told Dr. Rush that he ' liked that kind of 
preaching that drives a man into the corner of his pew, and makes 
him think the devil is after him.' He would have been delighted 
with Mr. Smith." That we may have an opportunity to prove 
the authenticity of his anecdotal lore, he naively refers us to Haz- 
ard's Register, Vol. XII, page 249. 

To give these fiery sectarists their due, they were a bold, 
hardy, simple-minded people ; read}^ and willing to toil in the 
fields with their rifles within reach, and equally ready to listen 
"to the preaching of the Word" with the same rifles in their 
hands. One more story of their struggle with want and we 
will see that there was a full-hearted generosity in the composi- 
tion of these Irish "seceders," who are immortalized by Virginia's 
sweetest and truest poet, in three lines : — 

'* Upon their dinted shields, no crests ; 
No glittering orders on their breasts. 
But iron in their blood." 

Mr. Smith had found a spiritual and faithful people, but they 
were too poor to pay a salary which would support his family. 
He, in common with all, must cultivate a farm. He bought one 
on the security of the salary pledged by his congregation. 

Year after year went by with the salary unpaid. The last 
payment was due, and neither the preacher nor the elders could 
pay it. The case was laid before the people. Mr. Moore, who 
owned the only mill in the country, offered to grind their wheat 
(which was their currency), on the most reasonable terms. 



EARL Y SE TTL E ME NTS. 99 

Wheat was abundant, but it could not be sold for more than 
twelve and a half cents per bushel, in cash ; and they were com- 
pelled to bring salt across the mountains at an exchange of 
twent3^-one bushels of wheat for one of salt. The people gave gen- 
erously of their grain, although some had to bring it from sixteen 
to twent3^-six miles to the mill. In a month the flour was ready 
to go to market. After the service was over on Sunday (the only 
day in the week on which all the people were gathered together), 
the question was asked : *' Who will run the flour to New Orleans ?" 
It was a perilous and daring venture. Many a boat's crew had 
gone down the river without even one of them returning to tell 
where the others had perished. The young men were silent, and 
the middle-aged stammered excuses, which all who shrunk from 
the undertaking must accept. At length one of the elders, tall, 
brawny, and white-haired, his face marked with the toil of nearly 
seventy years arose and said simply : " Here am I ; send me." Pas- 
tor and people united in remonstrance, but the old man was firm. 
To keep their pastor and release his home.from debt he was ready 
to brave danger and face death. Two young men were induced 
to go with him, and pastor and people together marched fifteen 
miles to the river to say "Godspeed" to the brave elder. A 
prayer was made, a hymn was sung, and the old Scotchman called 
out: "Untie the cable, and let us see what the Lord will do 
for us." Nearly ten months had passed without a word from 
Elder Smiley, when at last a Sunday came when the people found 
Father Smiley in his accustomed seat. After the services the 
people were told to come early in the week to hear the report 
from the sales. Monday the house was full, and after thanks 
had been given to God, the old man rose and told the story of 
his mission. He had sold his flour for twenty-seven dollars a 



lOO THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

barrel, and poured upon the table the largest pile of gold ever 
seen in the count}^ 

The young men were paid a hundred dollars apiece, and 
Father Smiley was asked his charges. "He thought," he said, 
"that he ought to have the same vSum as each of the others;" but 
modestly added, "he had not worked as hard." When the money 
was counted there was enough to pay Mr. Smith's entire dues, 
to advance the sum of his next year's salary, give Father Smiley 
three hundred dollars, and then pay a dividend to each con- 
tributor of wheat. 

Up to 1 793 the frontier was a constant scene of hand-to-hand 
fights and Indian inroads. Gradually the savages had been 
driven back, until the Ohio River was the battle-line, across 
which, however, a daring chief would occasionally lead a wald 
raid through the wilderness tracts between the sparse settle- 
ments; or a solitary warrior would come on a "still hunt" for 
scalps, and lurk in the wooded thickets, until some careless bor- 
derer, who had built his lonely cabin in the forest depths, away 
from the protecting block-house, gave the chance for which he 
was waiting. 

The Indians loved "The White Shining River," and the 
tribes that had been driven from its neighborhood retreated to 
the upper waters of the Scioto and the Miamis, that the warriors 
might be free to renew the contest for its possession without the 
encumbrance of villages to protect ; and so, day after day, some- 
where on " The Beautiful River," a battle was fought, or a fatal 
bullet or whizzing tomahawk struck the invader of the hunting- 
grounds. In the cool, green recesses of the woods, a stealthy 
foe would sometimes stalk the frontiersman, who, in eager pur- 
suit of a startled deer, forgot to be watchful, forgot that he him- 



EARL Y SETTLEMENTS. loi 

self was game to be hunted. Yet, even then, the odds were not 
altogether against the frontiersman, if, in the profound stillness, 
when he stopped to sight the game, a sudden snap of twig or 
bough, or even so small a thing as the fluttering rustle of a 
broken leaf, told the acute and listening senses of a danger to 
be averted or confronted. Even then, so ready was he in the 
game, so determined to triumph through some wily device, some 
trick of skill he had learned from the foe, some twist or turn of 
the hunter's or woodman's art, that— being warned— the odds 
were even. If it was too late for skill, it was never too late for 
daring. If the rifle snapped, or the flint failed, he would turn on 
his antagonist and face him as calmly as if he were proof against 
attack, knowing that a duel, without help or witness, had begun, 
and that one of the duelists would never leave the fateful glade. 
The frontiersmen w^ent down in many a hand-to-hand fight ; 
yet despite their losses, they were in time the owners of Ken- 
tucky, and lords paramount of the river. They were men of 
determination as well as courage, accustomed to hardship, skilled 
in all the strategy of the border. They overmatched the Indian 
in bodily strength, and with his own weapons foiled him in the 
game of war. 

They w^ere a product of race, tempered by the exigencies of 
a life which was forced to win its innings under the constant 
pressure of danger. With a certain show of justice, they in- 
sisted that their raids upon the Indian villages were raids of re- 
prisal, for in the lexicon of the frontier a war of defense meant 
a war of extermination. 

In their leather-belted hunting-shirts, furnished with sockets 
for tomahawk, knife, and pistol, with bullet-pouch, powder-horn, 
and hunting cup, thrown across a brawny chest, and carrying 



I02 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

with ease and a certain careless grace a heavy rifle, the frontiers- 
men were picturesque and stalwart figures, admirably in keeping 
with the wild background of vine-shrouded trees and dim forest 
aisles in which history and fancy has framed them. They be- 
longed to the dense woodland solitudes, to the tangled wilder- 
ness, through which the wandering brooks and the shaded creeks 
found their way to " The Shining River/' 




INDIAN CONFLICTS ON AND FOR THE RIVER. 

TT^^OI^FE'S victor}^ at Quebec, September the 4th, 1756, vir- 
^ ^ tualh- won Canada for the KngHsh, although the actual 
surrender of the New France dates at Montreal, September the 
8th, 1760. 

Immediately after the surrender, Major Robert Rogers was 
sent to take formal possession of the forts upon the lakes in- 
cluded in the capitulation of Montreal. Before reaching Detroit 
the astute officer clearly understood that there was a dangerous 
enemy to placate, an offended and resistant power to conciliate, 
before the English could reap any of the fruitful results of 
victory. 

On the south-west shore of Lake Erie, the present site of Cleve- 
land, Pontiac met the expedition. The opening speech of the 
Great Chief threatened a stormy ending ; yet Rogers's thorough 
understanding of Indian character and Indian diplomacy secured 
for the English troops an unmolested passage to Detroit. The 

surrender of the fort was demanded, the lilies of France were low- 

103 



I04 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

ered from the flag-staff, and the cross of St. George was upHfted 
over the Key to the Western lyakes. 

Neither the population of the town of Detroit, which, accord- 
ing to Rogers's estimate, amounted to about twent3'-five hundred 
inhabitants, nor the Indian alhes of the French living in numer- 
ous villages around and near the fort, offered any opposition to 
the change of rulers, except the opposition suggested in Pontiac's 
proud definition of the terms of settlement, and the significant 
warning that he would " drive out the English and shut up the 
door" if the terms which he had accepted at the council were 
violated. 

In the interval between the capitulation of Montreal and the 
treaty of Paris (Februar}' lo, 1763), which finally adjusted some 
minor difiiculties in the terms of peace, the Indians were ill at 
ease and restless. There were constant rumours of uprisings 
upon the frontiers. The strong hold the French still had in the 
North-west was shown in the grand council at Pontiac's village 
that spring, when all the lake tribes w^ere represented. That 
Pontiac believed in the final success of the French is bej^ond 
question, as is also the fact that the chiefs of the Algonquin Con- 
federac}^ accepted Pontiac's belief as an immediate reason for war. 

To have a clear understanding of the complications upon 
the border, it is necessary to understand something of the situa- 
tion of the Indian tribes ; and also the ties and the motives that 
influenced their alliances with the French, with the English, and 
with each other. 

The Indians upon the Illinois, where La Sallk had planted 
his colonies, were bound to the colonists by ties of blood, as well 
as of affection. Soldiers in the forts, traders in the Indian vil- 
lages, couriers des Iwis, who made their long and often solitary 



INDIAN CONFLTCTS. 1 05 

vo3^ages through tlie lakes and rivers of the North-west, had 
taken their wives from among the tribes of the Ilhnois. These 
Indians were nominally Catholics, therefore the Church sanc- 
tioned their marriages. In religion, language, and affection their 
descendants were French. Thus it very naturally came about 
that even the most timid — those who, from motives of gain or 
pohcy, wished to preserve a strict neutralit}^ between the dis- 
affected chiefs and their new rulers, the English — would not 
have betrayed the conspiracy of Pontiac if they had been trusted 
with full knowledge of his plans. Nor was this affiliation of the 
Illinois with the French an exceptional episode in the history of 
the lake tribes. It is true th?t I^A Sai.lk had a wonderful influ- 
ence over the Indians with whom he was thrown in contact; 
and, doubtless, he did more than any one man has ever done to 
impress the savages with respect and admiration for the French 
character.* Yet it is no less true that from the advent of Cham- 
plain, to the death of Montcalm, the French leaders were the 
models, as they were the admiration, of the greatest of the In- 
dian chieftains. 

The governors of "New France" had made friends of the 
Western chiefs ; and the French soldiers had heartily fraternized 
with their brave allies. The careless daring, the chivalry, the 
gayety, all those pronounced characteristics that brighten the 
camp and gild war, appealed at once to the pride, the imagina- 
tion, and the fealty of the savage w^arriors. The sentiment un- 
derl34ng the comradeship so frankly offered captivated fancies 
that had been fed upon the barbaric traditions of a brave, proud 

*A story told by the Abbe Renaudot, in his "Relations," illustrates this sympathetic 
admiration of the Indians for the F'rench : "A New York Hollander said to an Indian 
'that the French were the slaves of their kins: ; but that every Hollander was one of the 
masters in Holland.' ' If that is so,' replied the Indian, ' the slaves are of more value than 
the masters.' " 



lo6 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

race. Their French comrades called them brothers, and treated 
them as brothers. The French king was their father. The 
splendour of his glor}- was reflected upon his children ; and the 
child-like savage did not stint the measure of his admiration or 
his devotion. When Canada was lost to the French, there was 
the bitterness of sorrow, as well as of defeat, in the hearts of 
the Indians. This feeling runs through every sentence of Pon- 
tiac's reply to the address of the English officer sent to take 
possession of the forts. The first few sentences define the 
situation : 

"Englishmen, you know the French king is our father. He 
promised to be such, and we, in return, promised to be his chil- 
dren. This promise we have kept. Englishmen, you have made 
war upon our father. You are his enemies. How can 3'ou have 
the boldness to venture here among his children ? Do 3'ou not 
know that his enemies are ours ? He is old, infirm — he has been 
sleeping. You have taken advantage of that to possess yo\xx- 
selves of Canada. But he will awaken. I hear him stirring 
now. He is asking for his Indian children. When he is fully 
awake he will destroy you utterly." 

Any close study of the history of the North American Indian 
will force upon the unprejudiced student the irresistible convic- 
tion that the only race that has ever understood the Indian or 
treated him fairly was the French. Of all the peoples with 
whom the North American savage has been thrown in contact, 
the French alone never contemned or undervalued him. In some 
degree this is the outcome of a sympathetic and subtle similarity 
of traits. A likeness that is elusive and indistinct, but which is 
constantly brought out in the shading of individual character. 

The Indian, like the Gascon, vaunts his prowess, and, like the 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 07 

Gascon, he recklessly faces death to make that vaunt of chal- 
lenge good. In both races there is the same desperate courage 
in assault; if fed wath hope, the same endurance; if defeated, 
the same despairing hopelessness. Alike, they are easity stung 
to fierce effort by pride of race or devotion to a great leader. 
They will dare or die like heroes in the first onset of battle ; 
yet if their collected ranks recoil, if their assault fails, they are 
easily thrown into wild confusion, and their defeat is soon assured. 

The surrender of Canada to the EngHsh threw the tribes that 
were allied wdth the French into "the confusion of defeat." Un- 
happily for the security of the frontier, the English and the 
frontiersmen treated them with the scant ceremony which the 
Indian always resents. The Enghsh officers, regarding them as 
savages, treated them with careless contempt, as though they were 
the useless portion of the spoil of their recent conquest. Not 
knowing, or caring to know, anj^ avenue to their favor, they took 
no pains to find one ; not reckoning their value as alHes, they 
provoked their hatred. Soldiers and traders alike were brutal. 
The French traders were ordered awa}' from the stations upon the 
slightest pretexts ; and the English, who succeeded them, clinched 
their bargains with the strong hand. Delinquent debtors were 
treated to blows if the promised furs were not forthcoming at the 
appointed date ; others who brought their peltries were made 
drunk, cheated, and then kicked out of the trading-house. The 
resentment of the Indian was deferred ; but, with the savage, an 
indignit}^ suffered is a hate recorded. 

When, in addition to their personal wrongs, the public wrong 
to the tribes, in the conditions which defined the boundaries of 
the countr}^ surrendered by the French at the Treaty of Paris, was 
added to the general count of grievances, when the Indians 



io8 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

learned that all the lands east of the Mississippi, and as far south 
as the southern boundary of Georgia (the ownership of which 
had been vested in the Indian Confederacies of the West from 
time immemorial) was, by the Treaty of Paris, ceded to the En- 
glish, their rage equaled their hate. The Avarring confederacies 
were now ready to make peace with each other, that they might 
make common cause against the English. Owing to the in- 
fluence of Sir William Johnson with the Iroquois, the five origi- 
nal tribes of the Six Nations were allies of the English. These 
tribes, settled in Western New York and North-western Pennsyl- 
vania, had resisted the settlement of the "New France" on the 
upper bank of the St. Lawrence; and they still held bitter 
memories of successive wars with the French, in which they 
had sustained disastrous defeats. But wdth the Algonquin Con- 
federacy of the lake tribes and the Mobilian Confederacy of the 
South there were no reasons either of policy or friendship for 
their alliance with, or submission to, the English. 

With Pontiac at the head of the Algonquin chiefs, with the 
smoldering fire of the Cherokee war — which had been kindled 
by the aggressive spirit of the frontiersmen, who regarded the 
Indian as a wild beast that must be killed to clear the path — 
not yet extinguished, there was but little hope of peace or qui^t 
upon the border. The Southern warriors were grimly w^aiting 
an opportunity to pay their newly made score ; and it was with 
jealous eyes, clouded by the rankling soreness of defeat, that 
they watched the movements of the new neighbours defeat had 
forced upon their acceptance. 

Everywhere traders and settlers were pushing their way into 
the newly acquired territory. Posts and block-houses w^ere being 
builded upon the banks of the south-eastern tributaries of the 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 109 

Ohio — west of the route known to the tribes as the "Warrior's 
Road."^'^ 

"The Dark and Bloody Ground," which, by a tacit under- 
standing between the Northern and Southern Indians, had been 
reserved from habitation, and held as the wide-spread battle-field 
of the Nations ; the dueling-ground, where wrongs were to be 
avenged and disputes settled ; the place where the shock of war 
must be met, to protect the far distant villages, and which — 
when the tribes w^ere at peace — was the free hunting-ground 
for all, was now beginning to be dotted by long lines of well- 
laden pack-horses, the advance guard of emigrants coming to 
settle upon the lands that had been held, from the earliest period 
to which their traditions dated back, as the common property of 
the Nations. 

In utter disregard of Bouquet's proclamation from Fort Pitt, in 
1772, which said: "The treaty of Easton, in 1758, secured to the 
Indians all lands west of the mountains for their hunting-grounds; 
wherefore I forbid any, and all, settlements from being made 
there" — the settlements were made. In the quaint statement of 
a Western writer: "The savages knew with whom they had to 
deal ; they knew that every white man's fingers itched for the 
furs and the lands of the Indian ; they had learned that each 

'•'The Indian confederacies were subdivided into tribes, with their villages and bands of 
warriors ; and also into distinct clans or families, who wore a device or emblem, known in the 
Algonquin language as Totems. Although branches of the different clans might belong to 
tribes speaking a different language and living in far distant villages, the tie of fraternity 
was always recognized Each warrior was as proud of his Totem as any one of the warlike 
barons was of " The blazon o'er his towers displayed." 

The nearness of kinship implied in the Totem forbade intermarriage ; consequently, as 
husband and wife were of different clans, the Totems were widely dispersed through each 
Nation. In many of the tribes the Totem, like the chieftainship, descended in the female 
line, either to a brother born of the same mother, or to a sister's son. The feeling of clan- 
ship was as strong among the tribes as it was among the Scotch clans in the time of Rob 
Roy. If a stranger sought shelter in a village, and found there any one wearing the Totem 
of his clan, he was sure of safety and assistance. 



no THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

new treat}- was born of greed, and that it held within its folds 
the germ of a lie." 

When the pack-horses were halted upon some upHfted mount- 
ain ridge, or upon some rounded upland summit, it was not love 
for the beauty of this wild, rich nature that looked down upon the 
fertile glades inclosed within the steep declivities, but the eyes of 
Greed, which cast a covetous glance along the narrow bottom-lands 
that bordered the winding creeks, and spread into undulating 
meadows up to the rocky base of the steep and rugged hills. 
At every such view, Greed dreamed dreams of flocks and herds 
browsing upon the rich pastures, of waving fields of grain, 
of wind-blown rows of tasseled corn, of fruitful orchards upon 
the hillsides, now covered with wooded acres, whose growth 
outran the centuries that could be counted since the white 
man's coming. 

Upon the borders of Pennsylvania the situation was as threat- 
ening as upon the western border of Virginia. The colony of 
hard-working, hard-fighting, hard-praying, and, as truth is best 
unveiled, occasionally hard-drinking as well as hard-thinking 
Scotch-Irish, who began their exodus from Scotland before the 
fall of the great Montrose and the 'death of Claverhouse, and 
who crossed the sea from the North of Ireland to Pennsylvania 
when the scepter fell from the dead hand of Cromw^ell, brought 
into the colony an element altogether different in spirit and 
action from any then existing there. 

The sternest, most set, and determined of all this warlike 
contingent came over with John Preston, after the siege and loss 
of Derry made their stay in Ireland impossible. 

From the hour of their arrival in the "City of Brotherly Love," 
detesting the Quakers almost as much as they hated the Church 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 1 1 

of England or of Rome, they drifted to the west and to the 
south, to the very outermost boundaries of Pennsylvania and 
Virginia. Tracing the waters of the Susquehanna and the Po- 
tomac to their sources, finding portages across the mountains to 
the head-waters of the Ohio, they builded their rude wooden 
citadels upon the extreme verge of the settlements, making for 
the cautious Dutch emigrants, who followed in their wake, a 
cordon of defense against the savages upon the border. Clothed 
wnth a prickly chain-armor of intolerant beliefs, pestiferous to 
touch and impossible for defense, believing in the extermination 
of the Indians in America as they had believed in the extermi- 
nation of papists at home, and as their New England co-relig- 
ionists believed in the extermination of witches and Quakers, 
these fighting sectarists were the advance guard of a fierce, en- 
croaching phalanx, which swept westward, clearing the path of 
civilization with the besom of extermination. 

In their most distorted phase they were monsters of incar- 
nate wrath. In their highest expression of manhood, the world 
has seen nothing finer, either in character or action. At their 
worst, cruel and relentless murderers ; at their best, they were 
unselfishly ready to suffer — yes, to welcome death — to save a 
friend, to establish a principle, to defend a right, or to support 
and uphold a cause. As if to preserve the contrasting extremes 
of a race that can best be defined by contrasts, history has 
sketched the portrait of Simon Girty, and has gilded with mar- 
tial splendour the story of Stonewall Jackson. 

" Penn's policy," as unfolded in his personal dealings with 
the Indians of Pennsylvania, was eminently just ; yet that same 
"policy," when directed by his successors, covered stupendous 
frauds in the transfer of Indian lands. 



112 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

These later purchases were made by the agents through the 
"Indian Yankees" — the border name for the Iroquois — of the 
Six Nations, who drove a thrifty trade in lands to which they 
had not the shadow of ownership. Beginning with the sales of 
the Delaware lands upon the head- waters of the Susquehanna, 
the Six Nations continued their fraudulent transactions, until, 
step by step, the Dela wares and the Shawanese were driven back 
to the Ohio. 

The only pretext for this usurpation of authority, was a long- 
ago conquest of the Delawares (or Tuscaroras) by the then Five 
Nations, when a final peace was made by the consolidation which 
introduced the Delawares as an -qual power, through their 
adoption into the Iroquois confederacy, thus changing the num- 
ber from the "Five" to the " Six Nations T 

After their forcible removal from Pennsylvania, the chief 
settlement of the Delawares was at Logstown, on the right 
bank of the Ohio, where their king's rule was overshadowed 
by the arrogant Iroquois sachem Tanacharisen. The Shawanese, 
originally from South-eastern Georgia and North-western Florida, 
came north in 1697, and removed from the Susquehanna to the 
lands upon the north-west tributaries of the Ohio about 1728, 
when they finally withdrew from the Iroquois confederation. 
Already allied with the Delawares, both soon formed an alliance 
with the Miamis. 

Immediately after the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, the 
resumption of the interrupted efforts of the original "Ohio Com- 
pany" to fulfill the conditions of its charter provoked the ill-will 
and distrust of the Indians upon the Ohio. Organized (in 1748) 
by the Lees, the Washingtons, and other prominent Virginians, 
with whom were associated a syndicate of London merchants, its 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 13 

surveys, begun b}- Christopher Gist, south of the Ohio and east 
of the Kanawha, had been discontinued during the French and 
English war ; as also had been the survey's of the l^oysX Com- 
pany and the Greenbrier Company. But now there was a gen- 
eral movement westw^ard, and all of these companies were act- 
ively pushing their interests, not only upon the head-waters of 
the Ohio, but their agents in London w^ere asking for further 
concessions, and for fresh orders of instruction from the Colonial 
Government at Williamsburg. 

All along the frontier the plantations, deserted during the 
war, w^ere being reoccupied and cultivated. Pioneers were push- 
ing westward to build forts for coming emigrants. Traders 
were out among the Indian tribes passing from village to vil- 
lage collecting furs and skins. 

Into this scene of general activity throughout the Ohio Valley 
sinister figures were crowding. Grim, sullen warriors gathered 
around every trading-post, waiting to exchange their peltries for 
w^eapons and ammunition. They haughtily turned from " excellent 
bargains in beads, hand-mirrors, and ornaments," which traders 
persuasively offered. They would have nothing but "powder and 
shot," or the gun which was to win for them the trader's goods. 
The Shawanese and the Delawares were clustering around Fort 
Pitt. Detached bands of the Miamis were hidden in the wooded 
dells and sheltered from sight in the forest-shrouded creeks along 
the banks of the "Beautiful River," watching every canoe and 
trading-boat that floated upon the "deep, shining water." 

The Ottawas, the Ojibways, and the Wyandots had gathered 
at St. Ignace, ready for the capture of Michilimackinac. Every 
fort on the lakes and the lake streams was surrounded. 

Pontiac, with the bravest bands of the Algonquin Confed- 



114 ■ THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

eracy, was at his village opposite Detroit. The signal of general 
attack was to be given by Pontiac, and that signal was to be 
the capture of Detroit. A condensed extract best tells the story 
of the greatest of the chiefs : 

"Among all the wild tribes of the coutineiit personal merit is indispen- 
sable to gaining or preserving dignit}-. Courage, resolution, wisdom, address, 
and eloquence, are sure passports to distinction. With all these Pontiac was 
pre-eminently endowed. He possessed commanding energy and force of 
mind. Capable of acts of lofty magnanimity, he was a thorough savage, with 
a wider range of intellect than those around him, but sharing all their pas- 
sions and prejudices. His faults w^ere the faults of his race; and they can 
not eclipse his noble qualities, the great powers and heroic virtues of his 
mind. His memory is still cherished among the remnants of many Algon- 
quin tribes, and the celebrated Tecumseh adopted him for his model, prov- 
ing himself no unw^orthy imitator. 

" During the war he had fought on the side of France. It is said that 
he commanded the Ottawas at the memorable defeat of Braddock. 

"When the tide of affairs changed the subtle and ambitious chief 
trimmed his bark to the current, and gave the hand of friendship to the En- 
glish. That he was disappointed in their treatment of him, and in all the 
hopes that he had formed from their alliance, is sufficiently evident from 
one of his speeches. 

" It was a momentous and gloomy crisis for the Indian race, for never 
before had they been exposed to such pressing and imminent danger. 

" The English had gained an undisputed ascendency, and the Indians, 
no longer important as allies, were treated as mere barbarians, who might 
be trampled upon with impunity. 

"Already their best hunting-grounds were invaded, and from the eastern 
ridges of the AUeghanies they might see, from far and near, the smoke of 
the settler's clearings. 

" Goaded by wrongs and indignities, they struck for revenge and re- 
lief from the evil of the moment. But the mind of Pontiac could embrace 
a wider and deeper view. The peril of the times was unfolded in its full 
extent before him, and he resolved to unite the tribes in one grand effort to 
avert it. He adopted the only plan that was consistent with reason, that of 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 1 5 

restoring the French ascendency in the West, and once more opposing a 
check to British encroachment. 

"Revenge, ambition, and patriotism wrought upon him alike, and he 
resolved on war. At the close of the year 1762 he sent out ambassadors to 
the different nations. They visited the country of the Ohio and its tribu- 
taries, passed northward to the region of the upper lakes and the wild bor- 
ders of the River Ottawa, and far southward towards the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi. Bearing with them the war-belt of wampum, broad and long, as 
the importance of the message demanded, and the tomahawk stained red, 
in token of war, they went from camp to camp, and village to village. 
Wherever they appeared the sachems and old men assembled, to hear the 
words pf the great Pontiac. Then the head chief of the embassy flung 
down the tomahawk on the ground before them, and, holding the war-belt 
in his hand, delivered, with vehement gesture, word for word, the speech 
with which he was charged. It was heard everywhere with approbation, 
the belt was accepted, the hatchet snatched up, and the assembled chiefs 
stood pledged to take part in the war. The blow was to be struck at a cer- 
tain time in the month of May following, to be indicated by the changes of 
the moon. The tribes were to rise together, each destroying the English 
garrison in its neighborhood, and then, with a general rush, the whole were 
to turn against the settlements of the frontier. 

" While thus on the very eve of an outbreak, the Indians concealed their 
design with the deep dissimulation of their race. Now and then some 
slight intimation of danger would startle the garrisons from their security. 
On one occasion the plot was nearly discovered. Early in March, 1763, 
Ensign Holmes, commanding at Fort Miami, was told by a friendly Indian 
that the warriors in the neighboring village had lately received a war-belt, 
with a message urging them to destroy him arid his garrison, and that this 
they were preparing to do. Holmes writes to report his discovery to Major 
Gladwyn, who, in his turn, sends the information to Sir Jeffrey Amherst, 
expressing his opinion that there has been a general irritation among the 
Indians, but that the affair will soon blow over, and that, in the neighbor- 
hood of his own post, the savages were perfectly tranquil. Within cannon- 
shot of the deluded officer's palisades was the village of Pontiac himself. 

"While the war was on the eve of breaking out, an event occurred 
w^hich had afterwards an important effect upon its progress, th^ signing of 
the treaty of peace at Paris, on the loth of February, 1763. By this treaty 



Il6 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

France resigned her claims to the territories east of the Mississippi, and 
that great river now became the western boundary of the British colonial 
possessions. England left the valley of the Ohio and the adjacent regions 
as an Indian domain, and, by the proclamation of the 7th of October follow- 
ing, the intrusion of settlers upon these lands was stricth' prohibited. 
But the remedy came too late. While the sovereigns of France, England, 
and Spain were signing the treaty at Paris, countless Indian warriors in 
the American forests were singing the war-song and whetting their 
scalping-knives. 

"The council took place on the 27th of April. On that morning sev- 
eral old men, the heralds of the camp, passed to and fro among the 
lodges, calling the warriors, in a loud voice, to attend the meeting. 

" All were soon seated in a wide circle upon the grass, row within 
row, a grave and silent assembly. Pipes, with ornamented stems, were 
lighted, and passed from hand to hand. 

" Then Pontiac rose, and walked forward into the midst of the coun- 
cil, plumed and painted in the full panoply of war. Looking round upon 
his wild auditors, he began to speak, with fierce gesture, and loud, im- 
passioned voice ; and at every pause, deep guttural ejaculations of assent 
and approval responded to his words. He inveighed against the arrogance, 
rapacity, and injustice of the English, and contrasted them wnth the 
French, whom they had driven from the soil. He represented the danger 
that would arise from the supremacy of the English. Then holding out 
a broad belt of wampum, he told the council that he had received it from 
their great father, the king of PVance, in token th&t he had heard the 
voice of his red children ; that his sleep was at an end ; and that his 
great war-canoes would soon sail up the St. Lawrence, to wnn back Can- 
ada, and wreak vengeance on his enemies. The Indians and their French 
brethren should fight once more, side by side, as they had always fought; 
they should strike the English as they had struck them many moons ago, 
when their great army marched down the Monongahela, and they had 
shot them from their ambush, like a flock of pigeons in the woods. 

"Having roused in his warlike listeners their native thirst for blood 
and vengeance, he next addressed himself to their superstition. 

" Pontiac told them, in conclusion, that on the 2d of May he would 
gain admittance, with a party of his warriors, on pretense of dancing the 
Calumet dance before the garrison ; that they would take note of the 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 1 7 

strength of the fortification; and, this information gained, he would 
summon another council to determine the mode of attack. 

"On the 1st of May Pontiac came to the gate with forty men of the 
Ottawa tribe, and asked permission to enter and dance the Calumet dance 
before the officers of the garrison. After some hesitation he was ad- 
mitted, and proceeding to the corner of the street where stood the house 
of the commandant. Major Gladwyn, he and thirt}^ of his warriors began 
their dance, each recounting his own valiant exploits, and boasting him- 
self the bravest of mankind. The officers and men gathered around 
them ; while, in the meantime, the remaining ten of the Ottawas strolled 
about the fort, observing every thing it contained. When the dance was 
over, they all quietly withdrew, not a suspicion of their sinister design 
having arisen in the minds of the English. 

" After a few days had elapsed, Pontiac's messengers again passed among 
the Indian cabins, calling the principal chiefs to another council in the 
Pottawattamie village. He once more addressed the chiefs, inciting them 
to hostility against the English, and concluded by the proposal of his 
plan for destroying Detroit. 

" On the afternoon of the 5th of INIay, a Canadian woman, the wife of 
Lieutenant Aubin, one of the principal settlers, crossed over from the 
western side, and visited the Ottawa village, to obtain from the Indians a 
supply of maple-sugar and venison. She was surprised at finding several 
of the warriors engaged in filing off the muzzles of their guns, so as to 
reduce them, stock and all, to the length of about a yard. 

" Returning home in the evening, she mentioned what she had seen 
to several of her neighbors. Upon this, one of them, the blacksmith of 
the village, remarked that many of the Indians had lately visited his shop, 
and attempted to borrow files and saws for- a purpose which they would 
not explain. These circumstances excited the suspicion of the experi- 
enced Canadians. M. Gouin, an old and wealthy settler, went to the com- 
mandant and conjured him to stand upon his guard ; but Gladwyn, a man 
of fearless temper, gave no heed to the friendly advice. 

" In the Pottawattamie village lived an Ojibway girl, who, if there be truth 
in tradition, could boast a larger share of beauty than is common in the wig- 
wam. She had attracted the eye of Gladwyn, and she had become much 
attached to him. On the afternoon of the 6th, Catharine— for so the offi- 
cers called her— came to the fort, and repaired to Gladwyu's quarters. 



1 1 8 THE PICTURE SO UE OHIO, 

bringing with her a pair of elk-skin moccasins, ornamented with porcu- 
pine work, which he had requested her to make. There was something 
unusual iu her look and manner. Her face was sad and downcast. She 
said little, and soon left the room ; but the sentinel at the door saw her 
still lingering at the street corner, though the hour for closing the gates 
was nearly come. At length she attracted the notice of Gladwyn him- 
self; and calling to her, he pressed her to declare what was weighing 
upon her mind. Still sh^ remained for a long time silent, and it was 
only after much urgency and many promises not to betray her, that she 
revealed her momentous secret. 

" 'To-morrow,' she said, ' Pontiac will come to the fort with sixty of his 
chiefs, each wall be armed with a gun, cut short, and hidden under his 
blanket. Pontiac will demand to hold a council ; and after he has deliv- 
ered his speech, he will offer a peace-belt of wampum, holding it in a re- 
versed position. This will be the signal of attack. The chiefs will 
spring up and fire upon the officers, and the Indians in the street will fall 
upon the garrison. Every Englishman will be killed, but not the scalp of 
a single Frenchman will be touched.' 

" Gladwyn was an officer of signal courage and address. Calling his 
subordinates together, he imparted what he had heard. Every preparation 
was made to meet the sudden emergency. Half tlie garrison were ordered 
under arms, and all the officers prepared to spend the night upon the 
ramparts. ' It rained all day,' writes the chronicler, * but cleared up to- 
wards evening, and there was a ver}^ fair sunset.' 

" From sunset till dawn an anxious watch was kept from the slender 
palisades of Detroit. The soldiers were still ignorant of the danger, and 
the sentinels did not know why their numbers were doubled, or why, with 
such unwonted vigilance, their officers visited their posts. Again and again 
Gladwyn mounted his wooden ramparts and looked forth into the gloom. 
There seemed nothing but repose and peace in the soft, moist air ; but at 
intervals, as the night wind swept across the bastion it bore sounds of fear- 
ful portent to the ear, the sullen booming of the Indian drum and the wild 
chorus of quavering yells, as the warriors, around their distant camp-fires, 
danced the war-dance in preparation for the morrow's work. 

''The sun rose upon fresh fields and newly budding woods, and scarcely 
had the morning mists dissolved, when the garrison could see a fleet of 
birch canoes crossing the river from the eastern shore, within range of can- 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. II9 

11011-sliot above the fort. Only two or three warriors appeared in each, but 
all moved slowly, and seemed deeply laden. In truth, they were full of sav- 
ages lying flat on their faces, that their number might not excite the sus- 
picion of the English. 

"At an earl}^ hour the open common behind the fort was thronged with 
squaws, children, and warriors, some naked, and others fantastically arrayed 
in their barbarous finery. All seemed restless and uneasy, moving hither 
and thither, in apparent preparation for a general game of ball. Then, 
with an air of assumed indifference, they would move towards the gate. 
They were all admitted, for Gladw-yn who, in this instance, at least, showed 
some knowledge of Indian character, chose to convince his crafty foe that, 
though their plot was detected, their hostilit}- was despised. 

"At ten o'clock the great war chief, with his treacherous followers, 
reached the fort, and the gateway was thronged wdth their savage faces. 
All were wrapped to the throat in colored blankets. Some were crested 
wdtli hawk, eagle, or raven plumes ; others had shaved their heads, leaving 
only the fluttering scalp-lock on the crown. For the most part they were 
tall, strong men, and all had a gait and bearing of peculiar stateliness. 

" As Pontiac entered it is said that he started, and that a deep ejacula- 
tion half escaped from his broad chest. On either hand, within the gate- 
way, stood ranks of soldiers and hedges of glittering steel. The swarthy, 
half-wild engages of the fur-traders, armed to the teeth, stood in groups 
at the street corner, and the measured tap of a drum fell ominously on 
the ear. Pontiac strode forward into the narrow street, and his chiefs filed 
after him in silence. Their rigid muscles betrayed no sign of emotion^ 
yet, looking closely, one might have seen their small ej^es glance from side 
to side with restless scrutiny. 

" Traversing the entire width of the little town, they reached the door of 
the council-house, a large building standing near the margin of the river. 
Entering, the}^ saw Gladwyn with several of his officers seated in readiness to 
receive them, and the observant chiefs did not fail to remark that every En- 
glishman wore a sword at his side and a pair of pistols in his belt. The con- 
spirators eyed each other with uneasy glances. ' Why,' demanded Pontiac, ' do 
I see so many of my father's young men standing in the street wdth their 
guns?' Gladwyn replied through his interpreter, La Butte, that he had or- 
dered the soldiers under arms for the sake of exercise and discipline. With 
much delay and many signs of disgust the chiefs at length sat down on the 



I20 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

mats prepared for them, and after the customary pause, Pontiac rose to 
speak. Holding in his hand the wampum-belt, which was to have given the 
fatal signal, he addressed the commandant, professing strong attachment to 
the English, and declaring, in Indian phrase, that he had come to smoke the 
pipe of peace and brighten the chain of friendship. The officers watched 
him keenW as he uttered these hollow words, and once, it is said, he raised 
the wampum-belt as if about to give the signal of attack. But, at that in- 
stant, Gladwyn signed slightly with his hand. The sudden clash of arms 
sounded from the passage without, and a drum rolling the charge filled the 
council-room with its stunning din. At this Pontiac stood like one con- 
founded, and soon sat down in amazement and perplexity. 

" Another pause ensued, and Gladwyn commenced a brief reply. He 
assured the chiefs that friendship and protection should be extended towards 
them as long as they continued to deserve it, but threatened ample venge- 
ance for the first act of aggression. The council then broke up ; but be- 
fore leaving the room Pontiac told the officers that he would return in a few 
days, with his squaws and children, for he wished that they should all shake 
hands with their fathers, the English. To this new piece of treachery 
Gladwyn deigned no reply. The gates of the fort, which had been closed 
during the conference, were again flung open, and the baffled savages were 
sviffered to depart. 

" Balked in his treachery, the great chief withdrew to his village, en- 
raged and mortified, yet still resolved to persevere. That Gladwyn had suf- 
fered him to escape, was to his mind an ample proof either of cowardice or 
ignorance. The latter supposition seemed the more probable, and he re- 
solved to visit the English once more, and convince them, if possible, that 
their suspicions were unfounded. Early on the following morning he re- 
paired to the fort with three of his chiefs, bearing in his hand the sacred 
calumet, or pipe of peace, the bowl carved in stone and the stem adorned 
with feathers. Offering it to the commandant, he addressed him and his 
officers : ' M}- fathers, evil birds have sung lies in your ear. We that stand 
before you are friends of the English. We love them as our brothers, and, 
to prove our love, we have come this day to smoke the pipe of peace.' 

"At his departure he gave the pipe to Major Campbell, second in com- 
mand, as a farther pledge of his sincerit}'. 

" Early on the following morning, Monday, the 9th of May, before eleven 
o'clock, the common behind the fort was once more thronged with Indians of 



INDIAN CONFLICTS, I2i 

all the four tribes ; and Tontiac, advancing from among the multitude, ap- 
proached the gate. It was closed and barred against him. Pontiac shouted 
to the sentinels, and demanded why he was refused admittance. Gladwyn 
himself replied that the great chief might enter, if he chose, but that the 
crowd he had brought with him must remain outside. Pontiac rejoined 
that he wished all his warriors to enjoy the fragrance of the friendly calumet. 
Gladwyn's answer was more concise than courteous, and imported that he 
would have none of his rabble in the fort. Thus repulsed, Pontiac threw 
off the mask which he had worn so long ; he turned abruptly from the 
gate and strode towards his followers, who in great multitudes lay flat upon 
the ground, just beyond reach of gunshot. At his approach they all 
leaped up and ran oflF, yelping, in the words of an eye-witness, like so 
many devils. 

" Looking out from the loop-holes, the garrison could see them run- 
ning in a body towards the house of an old English woman, who lived, 
with her family, on a distant part of the common. They beat down the 
doors and rushed tumultuously in. A moment more and the mournful 
scalp-yell told the fate of the wretched inmates. 

" During the evening fresh tidings of disaster reached the fort. A 
Canadian, named Desnoyers, came down the river in a birch canoe, and, 
landing at the water-gate, brought news that two English officers, Sir Rob- 
ert Davies and Captain Robertson, had been waylaid and murdered by the 
Indians, above Lake St. Clair. The Canadians declared, moreover, that 
Pontiac had just been joined by a formidable band of Ojibways, from the 
Bay of Saginaw. 

'' Every Englishman in the fort, whether trader or soldier, was now 
ordered under arms. No man lay down to sleep, and Gladwyn himself 
walked the ramparts throughout the night. 

"All was quiet till the approach of dawn. But as the first dim redness 
tinged the east, and fields and woods grew visible in the morning twilight, 
suddenly the war-whoop rose on every side at once. Indians, pealing their 
terrific yells, came bounding naked to the assault. The soldiers looked 
from the loop-holes, thinking to see their assailants gathering for a rush 
against the feeble barrier. But, though their clamors filled the air, and 
their guns blazed thick and hot, 3'et very few were visible. 

" There was one low hill, at no great distance from the fort, behind 
which countless black heads of Indians alternately appeared and vanished, 



1^^ THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

while all along tlie ridge their guns emitted incessant white puffs of smoke. 
Every loop-hole was a target for their bvillets; but the fire was returned 
with steadiness, and not without effect. The Canadian engages of the fur- 
traders retorted the Indian war-whoops with outcries not less discordant, 
while the British and provincials paid back the clamor of the enemy with 
musket and rifle balls. Within half gunshot of the palisade was a cluster 
of out-buildings, behind which a host of Indians found shelter. A cannon 
was brought to bear upon them, loaded with red-hot spikes. They were 
soon wrapped in flames, upon which the disconcerted savages broke away 
in a body, and ran off" yelping, followed b}- a shout of laughter from the 
soldiers. 

" For six hours the attack was unabated ; but as the day advanced the 
assailants grew weary of their futile efforts. Their fire slackened, their 
clamors died away, and the garrison was left once more in peace, though 
from time to time a solitary shot, or lonely whoop, still showed the presence 
of some lingering savage, loath to be balked of his revenge. Among the 
garrison only five men had been wounded, w^hile the cautious enemy had 
suffered but trifling loss. 

" Gladwyn was still convinced that the whole affair was but a sudden 
ebvillition, which would soon subside ; and being, moreover, in great want 
of provision, he resolved to open negotiations wath the Indians. The 'in- 
terpreter. La Butte, was dispatched to the camp of Pontiac, to demand the 
reasons of his conduct, and declare that the commandant was ready to re- 
dress any real grievance of which he might complain. Two old Canadians, 
of Detroit, Chapeton and Godefroy, earnest to forward the negotiations, 
offered to accompany him. 

" Reaching the Indian camp, the three ambassadors were received by 
Pontiac with great apparent kindness. La Butte delivered his message, and 
the two Canadians labored to dissuade the chief, for his own good and for 
theirs, from pursuing his hostile purposes. Pontiac stood listening, armed 
with the true impenetrability of an Indian. Yet with all this seeming ac- 
quiescence, the heart of the savage was unmoved as a rock. The Canadians 
were completely deceived. 

" At La Butte's appearance all the chiefs withdrew to consult among 
themselves. They returned after a short debate, and Pontiac declared that, 
out of their earnest desire for firm and lasting peace, they wished to hold 
council with their English fathers themselves. With this view, they were 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 123 

expressly desirous that Major Campbell, second in command, should visit 
their camp. This veteran officer, from his just, upright, and manly char- 
acter, had gained the confidence of the Indians. To the Canadians the pro- 
posal seemed a natural one, and, returning to the fort, they laid it before 
the commandent. Gladwyn suspected treachery, but Major Campbell 
urgently asked permission to comply with the request of Pontiac. He felt, 
he said, no fear of the Indians, with whom he had always maintained the 
most friendW terms. Gladwyn, with some hesitation, acceded, and Camp- 
bell left the fort, accompanied by a junior officer, Lieutenant McDougal, 
md attended by La Butte and several other Canadians. 

" In the meantime Mr. Gouin, anxious to learn what was passing, had 
entered the Indian camp, and, moving from lodge to lodge, soon saw and 
heard enough to convince him that the two British officers were advanc- 
ing into the lion's jaws. He hastened to dispatch two messengers to 
warn them of the peril. The party had scarcely left the gate, when they 
were met by these men, breathless with running; but the warning came 
too late. Once embarked on the embassy, the officers would not be di- 
verted from it; and passing up the river road, they approached the little 
wooden bridge that led over Parent's Creek. Crossing this bridge, and as- 
cending a rising ground beyond, they saw before them the wide-spread 
camp of the Ottawas. A dark multitude gathered along its outskirts, and 
no sooner did they recognize the red uniform of the officers, than they 
all raised at once a horrible outcry of whoops and bowlings. Indeed, 
they seemed disposed to give the ambassadors the reception usuall}- ac- 
corded to captives taken in war ; for the women seized sticks, stones, and 
clubs, and ran towards Campbell and his companions, as if to make them 
pass the cruel ordeal of running the gauntlet. Pontiac came forward, and 
his voice allayed the tumult. He shook the officers by the hand, and 
turning, led the way through the camp. He paused before the entrance 
of a large lodge, and, entering, pointed to several mats placed on the 
ground at the side opposite the opening. Here, obedient to his signal, 
the two officers sat down. Instantly the lodge was thronged with savages. 
At their entrance, Pontiac had spoken a few words. A pause then en- 
sued, broken at length by Campbell, who from his seat addressed the In- 
dians in a short speech. It was heard in perfect silence, and no reply was 
made. At length Major Campbell, conscious, no doubt, of the danger in 
whicli he was placed, resolved fully to ascertain his true position, and 



124 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

rising to his feet, declared his intention of returning to the fort. Pontiac 
made a sign that he should resume his seat. ' My father,' he said, ' will 
sleep to-night in the lodges of his red children.' The gray-haired soldier 
and his companion M^ere betrayed into the hands of their enemies. 

" Many of the Indians were eager to kill the captives on the spot, but 
Pontiac would not carry his treachery so far. 

**On the morning after the detention of the officers, Pontiac crossed 
over, with several of his chiefs, to the Wyandot village. A part of this 
tribe, influenced by Father Pothier, their Jesuit priest, had refused to take 
vip arms against the English ; but being now threatened with destruction 
if the}^ should longer remain neutral, they were forced to join the rest. 
Having secured these new allies, Pontiac prepared to resume his opera- 
tions with fresh vigor. On the 12th of May, when these arrangements 
were complete, the Indians once more surrounded the fort, firing upon it 
from morning till night. 

"On the evening of that day, the officers met to consider what course 
of conduct the emergency required ; and, as one of them writes, the com- 
mandant was almost alone in his opinion that they ought still to defend 
the place. 

*' Day after day the Indians continued their attacks, until their war- 
cries and the rattle of their guns became familiar sounds. 

" For many weeks no man lay down to sleep except in his clothes, 
and with his weapons b}' his side. Parties of volunteers sallied, from 
time to time, to burn the out-buildings, which gave shelter to the enemy. 
They cut down orchard trees, and leveled fences, until the ground about 
the fort was clear and open, and the enemy had no cover left from whence 
to fire. The two vessels in the river, sweeping the northern and southern 
curtains of the works with their fire, deterred the Indians from approach- 
ing those points, and gave material aid to the garrison. Soon after the 
first attack, the Ottawa chief had sent in to Gladwyn a summons to sur- 
render, assuring him that if the place were at once given up, he might 
embark on board the vessels, with all his men; but that, if he persisted 
in his defense, he would treat him as Indians treat each other; that is, he 
would burn him alive. To this Gladwyn made answer that he cared noth- 
ing for his threats. The attacks were now renewed with increased ac- 
tivity, and the assailants were soon after inspired with fresh ardor by the 
arrival of a hundred and twenty Ojibway warriors from Grand River, 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 125 

" Detroit must have been abandoned or destroyed, but for the assist- 
ance of a few friendl}' Canadians, and especialh^ of M. Bab}^, a prominent 
habitant, who lived on the opposite side of the river, and provided the 
garrison with cattle, hogs, and other supplies. 

"Major Rogers, a man familiar with the Indians, and an acute judge of 
mankind, speaks in the highest terms of Pontiac's character and talents. 
'He puts on,' he says, 'an air of majesty and princely grandeur, and is 
greatly honored and revered b}^ his subjects.' 

" Pontiac had sent messengers to M. Neyon, commandant at the Illinois, 
earnestly requesting that a force of regular troops might be sent to his as- 
sistance ; and Gladwyn, on his side, had ordered one of the vessels to Ni- 
agara, to hasten forward the expected convo}-. The schooner set sail , but 
on the next day, as she lay becalmed at the entrance of Lake Erie, a multi- 
tude of canoes suddenly darted out upon her from the neighboring shores. 
In the prow of the foremost the Indians had placed their prisoner, Major 
Campbell, with the dastardly purpose of interposing him as a screen be- 
tween themselves and the fire of the English. But the brave old man called 
out to the crew to do their dut}', without regard to him. Happil}-, at that 
moment a fresh breeze sprang up ; the flapping sails stretched to the wind, 
and the schooner bore prosperously on her course toward Niagara, leaving 
the savage flotilla far behind. 

" On the 30th of Ma}', at about nine o'clock, the voice of the sentinel 
sounded from the south-east bastion, and loud exclamations, in the direction 
of the river, roused Detroit from its lethargy. Instantl}- the place was astir. 
The long-expected convoy was full in sight. On the further side of the river, 
at some distance below the fort, a line of boats was rounding the wood}- projec- 
tion, then called Montreal Point, their oars flashing in the sun, and the red 
flag of England flying from the stern of the foremost. The toils and dangers 
of the garrison were drawing to an end. With one accord they broke into 
three hearty cheers, again and again repeated, while a cannon, glancing 
from the bastion, sent its loud voice of defiance to the enemy, and welcome 
to approaching friends. But suddenly every cheek grew pale with horror. 
Dark, naked figures were seen rising, with wild gesture, in the boats, while, 
in the place of the answering salute, the distant yell of the war-whoop fell 
faintly on their ears. The convoy was in the hands of the enemy. The 
boats had all been taken, and the troops of the detachment slain or made 
captive. Officers and men stood gazing in a mournful silence, when an inci- 



126 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

dent occurred which caused them to forget the general calamity in the 
absorbing interest of the moment. 

"In each of the boats, of which there were eighteen, two or more of 
the captured soldiers, deprived of their weapons, were compelled to act as 
rowers, guarded by several armed savages, while many other Indians, for 
the sake of farther security, followed the boats along the shore. In the 
foremost, as it happened, there were four soldiers and only three Indians. 
The larger of the two vessels still lay anchored in the stream, about a bow- 
shot from the fort, while her companion, as we have seen, had gone down 
to Niagara to hasten up this very re-enforcement. As the boat came oppo- 
site this vessel the soldier who acted as steersman conceived a daring plan 
of escape. The principal Indian sat immediately in front of another of the 
soldiers. The steersman called, in English, to his comrade to seize the sav- 
age and throw him overboard. The man answered that he was not strong 
enough, on which the steersman directed him to change places with him, as 
if fatigued with rowing, a movement which would excite no suspicion on 
the part of the guard. As the bold soldier stepped forward, as if to take 
his companion's oar, he suddenly seized the Indian by the hair, and grip- 
ping with the other hand the girdle at his waist, lifted him by main force, 
and flung him into the river. The boat rocked till the water surged 
over her gunwale. The Indian held fast to his enemy's clothes, and draw- 
ing himself upwards as he trailed alongside, stabbed him again and again 
with his knife, and then dragged him overboard. Both went down the 
swift current, rising and sinking, and, as some relate, perished, grappled in 
each other's arms. The two remaining Indians leaped out of the boat. 
The prisoners turned and pulled for the distant vessel, shouting aloud for 
aid. The Indians on shore opened a heavy fire upon them, and many 
canoes paddled swiftly in pursuit. The men strained with desperate 
strength. A fate inexpressibly horrible was the alternative. The bullets 
hissed thickly around their heads ; one of them was soon wounded, and 
the light birch canoes gained on them with fearful rapidity. Escape 
seemed hopeless, when the report of a cannon burst from the side of the 
vessel. The ball flew close past the boat, beating the water in a line of 
foam, and narrowly missing the foremost canoe. At this the pursuers drew 
l)ack in dismay ; and the Indians on shore, being farther saluted by a sec- 
ond shot, ceased firing, and scattered among the bushes. The prisoners 
soon reached the vessel, when they were greeted as men snatched from 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 127 

the jaws of fate. 'A living monument; writes an officer of the garrison, 
' that fortune favors the brave.' 

"After night had set in several Canadians came to the fort bringing 
vague and awful reports of the scenes that had been enacted at the In- 
dian camp. The soldiers gathered round them, and, frozen with horror, 
listened to the appalling narrative. On the following day, and for several 
succeeding days, they beheld frightful confirmation of the rumors they 
had heard. Naked corpses, gashed with knives and scorched with fire, 
floated down on the pure waters of the Detroit, whose fish came up to 
nibble at the clotted blood that clung to their ghastly faces. 

"Late one afternoon, at about this period of the siege, the garrison 
were again greeted with the dismal cry of death, and a line of naked 
warriors w^ere seen issuing from the woods, which, like a wall of foliage, 
rose beyond the pastures in rear of the fort. Each savage was painted 
black, and each bore a scalp fluttering from the end of a pole. It was but 
too clear that some new disaster had befallen ; and in truth, before night- 
fall, one La Brosse, a Canadian, came to the gate with the tidings that 
Fort Sandusky had been taken, and all its garrison slain or made cap- 
tive. Among the few survivors of the slaughter was the commanding offi- 
cer, Ensign Paully, who had been brought prisoner to Detroit, bound 
hand and foot, and solaced on the passage with the expectation of being 
burnt alive; but an old woman, whose husband had lately died, chose to 
adopt him in place of the deceased warrior. Seeing no alternative but 
the stake, Paullj- accepted the proposal ; and having been first plunged in 
the river, that the white blood might be washed from his veins, he was 
conducted to the lodge of the widow, and treated thenceforth with all the 
consideration due to an Ottawa warrior. 

" Gladwyn soon received a letter from him, through one of the Cana- 
dian inhabitants, giving a full account of Fort Sandusky. On the i6th 
of May — such was the substance of the communication — Paully was in- 
formed that seven Indians were waiting at the gate to speak with him. 
As several of the number were well known to him, he ordered them, with-, 
out hesitation, to be admitted. Arrived at his quarters, tAvo of the treach- 
erous visitors seated themselves on each side of the commandant, while 
the rest were dispersed in various parts of the room. The pipes were 
lighted, and the conversation began, when an Indian, who stood in the 
doorway, suddenly made a signal by raising his head. Upon this, the 



128 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

astonished officer was instantly pounced upon and disarmed ; while, at the 
same moment, a confused noise of shrieks and yells, the firing of guns, 
and the hurried tramp of feet, sounded from the area of the fort without. 
It soon ceased, however, and PauU}', led by his captors from the room, saw 
the parade-ground strewn with the corpses of his murdered garrison. At 
night-fall, he was conducted to the margin of the lake, where several birch 
canoes lay in readiness, and as, amid thick darkness, the party pushed out 
from shore, the captive saw the fort, lately uuder his command, bursting 
on all sides into sheets of flame. 

"The sleepless garrison, worn by fatigue and ill-fare, and harassed 
by constant petty attacks, were yet further saddened by the news of disas- 
ter which thickened from every quarter. Of all the small posts, scattered 
at wide intervals through the vast wilderness to the westward of Niagara 
and Fort Pitt, it soon appeared that Detroit alone had been able to sustain 
itself For the rest, there was but one unvaried tale of calamity and ruin. 
On the 15th of June, a number of Pottawattamies were seen approaching 
the gate of the fort, bringing with them four English prisoners, who proved 
to be Ensign Schlosser, latel}^ commanding at St. Joseph's, together with 
three private soldiers. The Indians wished to exchange them for several 
of their own tribe, who had been for nearly two months prisoners in the 
fort. After some delay this was effected, and the garrison then learned 
the unhappy fate of their comrades at St. Joseph's. 

" The next news which came in was that of the loss of Ouatanon, a fort 
situated upon the Wabash, a little below the site of the present town of I^a- 
fayette. Gladw3m received a letter from its commanding officer. Lieutenant 
Jenkins, informing him that, on the ist of June, he and several of his men had 
been made prisoners by stratagem, on which the re.^t of the garrison had 
surrendered. The Indians, however, apologized for their conduct, de- 
claring that they acted contrary to their own inclinations, and that the 
surrounding tribes had compelled them to take up the hatchet. 

"Close upon these tidings came the news that Fort Miami was taken. 
This post, standing on the River Maumee, was commanded by Ensign 
Holmes. 

"The loss of Presque Isle will close this black catalogue of calamity. 
Rumors of it first reached Detroit on the 20th of June, and two days later 
the garrison heard those dismal cries, announcing scalps and prisoners, 
which, of late, had grown mournfully familiar to their ears. Indians were 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 129 

seen passing in numbers along the opposite bank of the river, leading 
several English prisoners, who proved to be Ensign Christie, the command- 
ing officer at Presque Isle, with those of his soldiers who survived. There 
had been hot fighting before Presque Isle was taken. 

"At early dawn on the 15th of June the garrison of Presque Isle were 
first aware of the enemy's presence ; and when the sun rose they saw them- 
selves surrounded by two hundred Indians, chiefly from the neighborhood 
of Detroit. At the first alarm they abandoned the main body of the fort, 
and betook themselves to the block-house as a citadel. The Indians crowd- 
ing together in great numbers, under cover of the rising ground, kept up a 
rattling fire, and not only sent their bullets into every loop-hole and crev- 
ice, but shot fire-arrows upon the roof, and threw balls of burning pitch 
against the walls. Again and again the building took fire, and again and 
again the flames were extinguished. From earliest daybreak the little gar- 
rison had fought and toiled without a moment's rest. Nor did the darkness 
bring relief, for guns flashed all night long from the Indian intrenchments. 
Morning brought fresh dangers. The men were now, to use the words 
of their officer, ' exhausted to the greatest extremity ;' yet they kept up 
their forlorn and desperate defense, toihng and fighting without pause 
within the wooden walls of their dark prison, where the close and heated 
atmosphere was clogged with the smoke of gunpowder. The fire on both 
sides continued through the day, and did not cease till midnight, at which 
hour a voice was heard to call out in French, from the enemy's intrench- 
ments, warning the garrison that further resistance would be useless, since 
preparations were made for setting the block-house on fire. Christie de- 
manded if there were any among them who spoke English ; upon which a 
man in the Indian dress came out from behind the breastwork. He said 
that if they yielded their lives should be spared, but if they fought longer 
they must all be burnt alive. Christie, resolving to hold out as long as a 
shadow of hope remained, told them to wait till morning for his answer. 
When morning came Christie sent out two soldiers, as if to treat with the 
enemy, but, in reality, to learn the truth of what they had said respecting 
their preparations to burn the block-house. On reaching the breastwork 
the soldiers made a signal, by which their officer saw that his worst fears 
were well founded, and Christie, going out, yielded up the little fortress 
which he had defended with such indomitable courage, having first stipu- 
lated that the lives of all the garrison should be spared, and that they might 

9 



I30 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

retire unmolested to the nearest post. The soldiers, pale, wild, and haggard, 
like men who had passed through a fiery ordeal, now issued from the 
block-house, whose sides were pierced with bullets and scorched with fire. 
In spite of the capitulation, they were surrounded and seized, and having 
been detained for some time in the neighborhood, were sent as prisoners 
to Detroit, where Ensign Christie soon after made his escape, and gained 
the fort in safety. 

"After Presque Isle was taken, the neighboring little posts of Le 
Bceuf and Venango shared its fate, while farther southward, at the forks 
of the Ohio, a host of Delaware and Shawanese warriors were gathering 
around Fort Pitt, and blood and havoc reigned along the whole frontier. 

" On the 19th of June a rumor reached them, at Detroit, that one of the 
vessels had been seen near Turkey Island, some miles below the fort, but 
that, the wind failing her, she had dropped down with the current, to wait a 
more favorable opportunity. 

" For several days the officers at Detroit heard nothing further of the 
vessel, when, on the 23d, a great commotion was visible among the Indians. 
The cause of these movements was unknown till evening, when IVI. Baby 
came in with intelligence that the vessel was again attempting to ascend the 
river, and that all the Indians had gone to attack her. Upon this two 
cannon were fired, that those on board might know that the fort still 
held out. 

" The schooner brought to the garrison a much needed supply of men, 
ammunition, and provision. She brought, also, the interesting and im- 
portant tidings that peace was at length concluded between France and 
England. By this treaty the Canadians of Detroit were placed in a new po- 
sition ; their allegiance was transferred from the crown of France to that of 
Britain, and they were subjects of the English king. To many of them the 
change was extremely odious, for they cordially hated the British. They 
went about among the settlers and the Indians, declaring that the pre- 
tended news of peace was only an invention of Major Gladwyn ; that the 
king of France would never abandon his children. This oft-repeated false- 
hood was implicitly believed by the Indians. 

" Pontiac himself clung fast to this delusive hope. He exerted himself 
with fresh zeal to gain possession of the place, and attempted to terrify 
Gladwyn into submission. He sent a message, in which he strongly urged 
him to surrender, adding, by way of stimulus, that eight hundred more 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 131 

Ojibways were every day expected, and that, on their arrival, all his influ- 
ence could not prevent them from taking the scalp of every Englishman in 
the fort. To this friendly advice Gladwyn returned a very brief and con- 
temptuous answer. 

" Pontiac, having long been anxious to gain the Canadians as auxiliaries 
in the war, now determined on a final effort to effect his object For this 
purpose he sent messages to the principal inhabitants, inviting them to 
meet him in council. In the Ottawa camp there was a vacant spot, quite 
level, and encircled by the huts of the Indians, Here mats were spread for 
the reception of the deputies, who soon convened, and took their seats in a 
wide ring. One part was occupied by the Canadians, among whom were 
several whose withered, leathery features proclaimed them the patriarchs of 
the secluded little settlement. Opposite these sat the stern-visaged Pon- 
tiac, with his chiefs on either hand, while the intervening portions of the 
circle were filled by Canadians and Indians promiscuously mingled. 
Standing on the outside, and looking over the heads of this more dignified 
assemblage, was a motley throng of Indians and Canadians, half-breeds, 
trappers, and voyageurs, in wild and picturesque, though very dirty, attire. 
Conspicuous among them were numerous Indian dandies, a large class in 
every aboriginal community. 

"All was silent, and several pipes were passing round from hand to 
hand, when Pontiac rose and threw down a war-belt at the feet of the 
Canadians. 

" ' My brothers,' he said ' how long will you suffer this bad flesh to re- 
main upon your lands? I have told you before, and I now tell you again, 
that when I took up the hatchet, it was for your good. This year the En- 
glish must all perish throughout Canada. Until now I have said nothing 
on this matter. I have not urged you to take part with us in the war. It 
would have been enough had you been content to sit quiet on your mats, 
looking on, while we were fighting for you ; but you have have not done so. 
You call yourself our friends, and yet you assist the English with provision, 
and go about as spies among our villages. This must not continue. You 
must be either wholly French or wholly English. If you are French, take 
up that war-belt and lift the hatchet with us ; but if you are English, then 
we declare war upon you. Look upon the belt, and let us hear your answer.' 
*' One of the Canadians, having suspected the purpose of Pontiac, had 
brought with him, not the treaty of peace, but a copy of the capitulation of 



132 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Montreal, with its dependencies, including Detroit. Pride, or some other 
motive, restrained him from confessing that the Canadians were no longer 
children of the king of France, and he determined to keep up the old de- 
lusion that a French army was on its way to win back Canada, and chastise 
the EngHsh invaders. He began his speech in reply to Pontiac by profess- 
ing great love for the Indians, and a strong desire to aid them in the war. 
'But, my brothers,' he added, holding out the articles of capitulation, 'you 
must first untie the knot with which our great father, the king, has bound 
us. In this paper he tells all his Canadian children to sit quiet and obey 
the English until he comes. We dare not disobey him. Do you think you 
could escape his wrath if you should raise the hatchet against his French 
children? Tell us, my brothers, what can you reply to this?' 

" Pontiac for a moment sat silent, mortified, and perplexed ; but his 
purpose was not destined to be wholly defeated. ' Among the French,' says 
the writer of the diary, 'were many infamous characters, who, having no 
property, cared nothing what became of them.' They were, for the most 
part, a light and frivolous crew, little to be relied on for energy or stability ; 
though among them were men of hard and ruffian features, the ringleaders 
and bullies of the voyageiirs, and even a terror to the bourgeois himself. 
It was one of these who now took up the war-belt, and declared that he and 
his comrades were ready to raise the hatchet for Pontiac. The council had 
been protracted to a late hour. It was dark before the assembly dissolved ; 
'so that,' as the chronicler observes, 'these new Indians had no opportunity 
of displaying their exploits that day.' 

"Pontiac derived little advantage from his Canadian allies. On the 
night succeeding the feast a party of the renegades, joined by about an 
equal number of Indians, approached the fort. They were observ^ed, the 
gate was thrown open, and a file of men, headed by Lieutenant Hay, sallied 
out to dislodge them. This was effected without much difficulty. 

" Until the end of July, little worthy of notice took place at Detroit. 
In the meantime, unknown to the garrison, a strong re-enforcement was 
coming to their aid. Captain Dalzell had left Niagara with twenty-two barges, 
bearing two hundred and eighty men, with several small cannon, and a 
fresh supply of provision and ammunition. 

"On the day of his arrival he had a conference with Gladwyn at the 
quarters of the latter, and strongly insisted that the time was come when 
an irrecoverable blow might be struck at Pontiac. He requested permission 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 133 

to march out on the following night aiul attack the Indian camp. Glad- 
A\'3:n, better acquainted with the position of affairs, and, perhaps, more cau- 
tious by nature, was averse to the attempt ; but Dalzell urged his request so 
strenuously that the commandant 34elded to his representation, and gave a 
tardy consent. On the afternoon of the 30th orders were issued and prep- 
arations made for the meditated attack. 

"About two o'clock, on the morning of the 31st of July, the gates were 
thrown open in silence, and the detachment, two hundred and fifty in 
number, passed noiselessly out. 

"A mile and a half from the fort, Parent's Creek, ever since that night 
called 'Blood}' Run,' descended through a wild and rough holloM', and en- 
tered the Detroit amid a growth of rank grass and sedge. Onh- a few rods 
from its mouth the road crossed it by a narrow wooden bridge, not existing 
at the present day. The advanced guard were half-way over the bridge, and 
the main body just entering upon it, when a horrible burst of yells rose in 
their front, and the Indian guns blazed forth a general discharge. Half the 
advanced party were shot down; but Dalze;ll shouted from the van, and, in 
madness of mingled rage and fear, they charged at a run across the bridge 
and up the heights beyond. Not an Indian was there to oppose them. 
In vain the furious soldiers sought their enemy behind fences and in- 
trenchments. The active savages had fled ; 3-et still their guns flashed 
thick through the gloom, and their war-cry rose with undiminished 
clamor. The English pushed forward amid the pitchy darkness. At 
every pause they made, the retiring enemy would gather to renew the at- 
tack, firing back hotly upon the front and flanks. To advance further 
would be useless, and the only alternative was to withdraw and wait for 
daylight. This task was commenced amid a sharp fire from both sides; 
and before it was completed, hea\^ volleys were heard from the rear, 
where Captain Grant was stationed. It w^as now evident that instant re- 
treat was necessary; and the command being issued to that eff"ect, the men 
fell back into marching order, and slowly began their retrograde move- 
ment. Grant was now in the van, and Dalzell at the rear. They reached 
a point where, close upon the right, were many barns and out-houses, 
with strong picket fences. Behind these, and in a newh' dug cellar close 
at hand, lay concealed a great multitude of Indians. They suffered the 
advanced party to pass unmolested, but when the center and rear came 
opposite their ambuscade, they raised a frightful yell, and poured a volley 



134 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

among them. The men had well-uigh fallen into a panic, and but for 
the presence of Dalzell, the retreat would have been turned into a flight. 
' The eneni}',' writes an officer who was in the fight, ' marked him for 
his extraordinary bravery;' and he had already received two severe 
wounds. Yet his exertions did not slacken for a moment. Some of the 
soldiers he rebuked, some he threatened, and some he beat with the flat 
of his sword. 

" The enemy had taken possession of a house, from the windows of 
which they fired down upon the English. Major Rogers, with some of 
his provincial rangers, burst the door with an axe, rushed in, and expelled 
them, and now the fire of the Indians, being much diminished, the re- 
treat was resumed. No sooner had the men faced about, than the savages 
came darting through the mist upon their flank and rear, cutting down 
stragglers, and scalping the fallen. At a little distance lay a sergeant of 
the 55tli, helplessly wounded; raising himself on his hands, and gazing 
with a look of despair after his retiring comrades. The sight caught the 
e5^e of Dalzell. That gallant soldier, in the true spirit of heroism, ran 
out amid the firing to rescue the wounded man, when a shot struck him, 
and he fell dead. 

*' In the meantime, Captain Grant, with his advanced party, had moved 
forward about half a mile, where he found some orchards and inclosures, 
by means of which he could maintain himself until the center and rear 
should arrive. From this point he detached all the men he could spare to 
occupy the houses below ; and as soldiers soon began to come in from the 
rear, he was enabled to re-enforce these detachments, until a complete line 
of communication was established with the fort, and the retreat effect- 
ually secured. Within an hour the whole party had arrived, with the ex- 
ception of Rogers and his men, who were quite unable to come off, being 
besieged in the house of Campan by full two hundred Indians. The two 
armed bateaux had gone down to the fort, laden with the dead and 
wounded. They now returned, and in obedience to an order from Grant, 
proceeded up the river to a point opposite Campan's house, where they 
opened a fire of swivels, which swept the ground above and below it, and 
completely scattered the assailants. Rogers and his party now came out, 
and marched down the road to unite themselves with Grant. The two 
bateaux accompanied them closely, and, by a constant fire, restrained the 
Indians from making an attack. 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 135 

"About eight o'clock, after six hours of marching and combat, the de- 
tachment entered once more within the sheltering palisades of Detroit. 

" The Indians were greatly elated by their success. Runners were sent 
out for several hundred miles through the surrounding woods, to spread 
tidings of the victory ; and re-enforcements soon began to come in to swell 
the force of Pontiac. ' Fresh warriors,' writes Gladwyn, ' arrive almost 
every day, and I believe that I shall soon be besieged by upwards of a 
thousand.' But nothing worthy of notice occurred, until the night of the 
4th of September. 

" The schooner Gladivyn, the smaller of the two armed vessels so often 
mentioned, had been sent down to Niagara with letters and dispatches. 
She was now returning. The night set in with darkness so complete that 
at the distance of a few rods nothing could be discerned. Meantime, 
three hundred and fifty Indians, in their birch canoes, glided silently down 
with the current, and were close upon the vessel before they were seen. 
There was only time to fire a single cannon-shot among them before they 
were beneath her bows and clambering up her sides, holding their knives 
clinched fast between their teeth The crew gave them a close fire of mus- 
ketry, without any effect ; then, flinging down their guns, they seized the 
spears and hatchets with which they were all provided, and met the assail- 
ants with such furious energy and courage that in the space of two or three 
minutes they had killed and wounded more than twice their own number. 
But the Indians were only checked for a moment. The master of the ves- 
sel was killed, several of the crew were disabled, and the assailants were 
leaping over the bulwarks, when Jacobs, the mate, called out to blow up the 
schooner. This desperate command saved her and her crew. Some Wy- 
andots, who had gained the deck, caught the meaning of his words, and 
gave the alarm to their companions. Instantly every Indian leaped over- 
board in a panic, and the whole were seen diving and swimming off 
in all directions, to escape the threatened explosion. The schooner was 
cleared of her assailants, who did not dare to renew the attack ; and on the 
following morning she sailed for the fort, which she reached without 
molestation." 

From Dunniore's War, through the French and English con- 
test, through the Revolution, through the surrender of the lake 
forts by the English, through St. Clair's disastrous defeat, through 



13^ THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the joy of " Mad Anthony " Waj^ne's victory and the glory of the 
Thames and Tippecanoe, down to the final pacification of the 
border by General William Henry Harrison, the " Pioneers of 
the West " were in the fore-front of battle. From first to last 
the older records best tell the story. 

" The battle of Point Pleasant took place in Dunmore's War, October 
ID, 1774. It was the bloodiest battle perhaps ever fought with the Indians 
in Virginia. It had its origin in a variety of causes ; but that which more 
than all others hastened the crisis was the murder of the family of Logan 
by the whites, at or near the mouth of Yellow Creek. This disgraceful act 
is, by some, imputed to Colonel Cresap, a distinguished frontiersman, who 
resided near the town of Wheeling. Logan at least believed him to be the 
guilty party. By others it is strongly denied that Colonel Cresap was a par- 
ticipant in the affair. But, be this as it may, the act, in addition to other 
exasperations, had greatly incensed the Indian tribes on the north of the 
Ohio River. 

"To protect the settlements bordering on the Upper Ohio, it soon be- 
came necessary to organize an army in the East sufficient to operate against 
the savages. 

" The army destined for the expedition was composed of volunteers and 
militia, chiefly from the counties west of the Blue Ridge, and consisted of 
two divisions. The Northern Division, comprehending the troops collected 
in Frederick, Dunmore (now Shenandoah), and the adjacent counties, was 
to be commanded by Lord Dunmore in person ; and the Southern, com- 
prising the different companies raised in Bottetourt, Augusta, and the ad- 
joining counties east of the Blue Ridge, was to be led on by General 
Andrew Lewis. These two divisions, proceeding by different routes, were 
to form a junction at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, and from thence pen- 
etrate the country north-west of the Ohio River, as far as the season would 
permit, and destroy all the Indian towns and villages they could reach. 

"When the Southern Division arrived at Point Pleasant, Governor 
Dunmore, with the forces under his command, had not reached there ; 
however, advices were received from his lordship that he had determined 
on proceeding across the country directly to the Shawnee towns,* and 



-On the Scioto River, about eighty miles north-west of Point Pleasant. 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 137 

ordering General Lewis to cross the river, march forv\'ard and form a junc- 
tion with him near to them. These advices were received on the 9th of 
October, and preparations were immediately commenced for the transporta- 
tion of the troops over the Ohio River. 

" Early on the morning of Monday, the loth of that month, two sol- 
diers left the camp and proceeded up the Ohio River in quest of deer. 
When they progressed about two miles, they unexpectedly came in sight 
of a large number of Indians rising from their encampment, and who, 
discovering the hunters, fired upon them and killed one; the other es- 
caped unhurt, and, running briskly to the camp, communicated the intel- 
ligence 'that he had seen a body of the enemy covering four acres of 
ground as closely as they could stand by the side of each other.' The 
main part of the army was immediately ordered out under Colonel Lewis 
and William Fleming, and, having formed into two lines, they proceeded 
about four hundred yards, when they met the Indians, and the action 
commenced. 

" At the first onset. Colonel Charles Lewis having fallen, and Colonel 
Fleming being wounded, both lines gave way, and were retreating briskly 
toward the camp, when they were met by a re-enforcement under Colonel 
Field, and rallied. The engagement then became general, and was sus- 
tained by the most obstinate fury on both sides. The Indians, perceiving 
that the ' tug of war ' had come, and determined on affording the Colonial 
army no chance of escape if victory should declare for them, formed a line 
extending across the point from the Ohio to the Kanawha, and protected in 
front by logs and fallen timber. In this situation they maintained the 
contest with unabated vigor from sunrise till toward the close of evening, 
bravely and successfully resisting every charge which was made on them, 
and withstanding the impetuosity of every onset with the most invincible 
firmness, until a fortunate movement on the part of the Virginian tVoops 
decided the day. 

" Some short distance above the entrance of the Kanawha River into 
the Ohio there is a stream called Crooked Creek, emptying into the former 
of these from the north-east, whose banks are tolerably high, and were then 
covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the imprac- 
ticability of dislodging the Indians by the most vigorous attack, and sensible 
of the great danger which must arise to his army if the contest were not 
decided before night, General Lewis detached the three companies which 



r38 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

were commanded by Captains Isaac Shelby, George Matthews, and John 
Stewart, with orders to proceed up the Kanawha River and Crooked Creek, 
under cover of the banks and weeds, till they could pass some distance be- 
yond the eneni}^, when they were to emerge from their covert, march down- 
ward toward the point, and attack the Indians in the rear. The maneuver 
thus planned was promptly executed, and gave a decided victory to the 
Colonial army. The Indians, finding themselves suddenly and unexpect- 
edly encompassed between two armies, and not doubting but in the rear 
was the looked-for re-enforcement under Colonel Christian, soon gave way, 
and about sundow^n commenced a precipitate retreat across the Ohio to the 
towns on the Scioto. 

" The victory indeed was decisive, and many advantages were obtained 
by it, but they were not cheaply bought. The Virginian army sustained in 
this engagement a loss of seventy-five killed and one hundred and forty 
wounded, about one-fifth of the entire number of troops. 

" Nor could the number of the enemy engaged be ever ascertained. 
Their army is known to have been made up of w^arriors from the different 
nations north of the Ohio, and to have comprised the flower of the tribes 
already mentioned. The distinguished chief and consummate warrior. 
Cornstalk, who commanded their forces, proved himself on that day to be 
justly entitled to the prominent station which he occupied. His plan of 
alternate retreat and attack was well conceived, and occasioned the princi- 
pal loss sustained by the whites. If at any time his warriors were believed 
to waver, his voice could be heard above the din of arms, exclaiming in his 
native tongue: 'Be strong! Be strong!' And when one near him, by trepi- 
dation and reluctance to proceed to the charge, evinced a dastardly disposi- 
tion, fearing the example might have a pernicious influence, with one blow^ 
of the tomahawk he severed his skull. It was perhaps a solitary instanct 
in which terror predominated. Never did men exhibit a more conclusive 
evidence of bravery in making a charge, and fortitude in withstanding 
an onset, than did those undisciplined soldiers of the forest in the field at 
Point Pleasant. 

" Having buried the dead, and made every arrangement of which their sit- 
uation admitted for the comfort of the wounded, intrenchments were thrown 
up, and the army commenced its march to form a junction with the northern 
division under Lord Dunmore. Proceeding by the way of the Salt Licks 
General Lewis pressed forward with astonishing rapidity (considering that 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 139 

the march was through a trackless desert) ; but before he had gone far an ex- 
press arrived from Duumore with^orders to return inmiediately to the mouth 
of the Big Kanawha. Suspecting the integrit}- of his lordship's motives, 
and urged by the advice of his officers generally, General Lewis refused to 
obey these orders, and continued to advance till he was met at Kilkenny 
Creek,*" and in sight of an Indian village which its inhabitants had just 
fired and deserted, by the governor, accompanied by White Eyes, who 
informed him that he was negotiating a treaty of peace, which would 
supersede the necessity of any further movement of the Southern Division, 
and repeated the order for his return. 

" On his arrival at Point Pleasant, General Lewis left a sufficient force 
to protect the place, and a supply of provisions for the wounded, and then 
led the balance of the division to the place of rendezvous (Lewisburg) and 
disbanded them." 

Into this story of Dunmore's War comes a sadder page; for it 
emphasizes a history which runs through more than one " Cent- 
ury of Dishonor!" — the history of the Indians' wrongs and the 
Government's shame : 

" Cornstalk had, from the first, opposed the war with the whites, and 
when his scouts reported the advance of General Lewis's division the saga- 
cious chief did all he could to restrain his men and keep them from battle. 
But all his remonstrances were in vain, and it was then he told them, ' As 
you are determined to fight, you shall fight' After their defeat and retun*. 
home, a council was convened to determine upon what was next to be done. 
The stern old chief said, rising : ' What shall we do now ? The Long Knives 
are coining upon us by two routes. Shall we turn out and fight them? 
Shall we kill all our squaws and children, and then fight until we are killed 
ourselves?' Still the congregated warriors were silent, and, after a mo- 
ment's hesitation, Cornstalk struck his tomahawk into the war-post, and 
with compressed lips and flashing eyes gazed around the assembled group ; 
then, with great emphasis, spoke : ' Since you are not inclined to fight I will 
go and make peace.' 

"Lord Dunmore, on his return to Camp Charlotte, concluded a treaty 



•Congo, a branch of Ihe Scioto. 



I40 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

^vith tlie ludians. Cornstalk was the chief speaker on the part of the In- 
dians. He openly charged the whites with being the sole cause of the war, 
enumerating the many provocations w^hich the Indians had received, and 
dwelling with great force and emphasis upon the diabolical murder of 
Logan's family. This great chief spoke in the most vehement and denun- 
ciator}' style. His loud, clear voice was distinctly heard throughout 
the camp. 

" But there was one who would not attend the camp of Lord Dunmore, 
and that was Logan. The Mingo chief felt the chill of despair at his 
heart ; his very soul seemed frozen within him ; and, although he would not 
interpose obstacles to an amicable adjustment of existing difficulties, still 
he could not meet the Long Knives in council as if no terrible stain of 
blood rested upon their hands. He remained at a distance, brooding in 
melanchol}' silence over his accumulated wrongs during most of the time 
his friends were negotiating. But Dunmore felt the importance of at least 
securing his assent, and for that purpose sent a special messenger. Colonel 
John Gibson, who waited upon the chief at his wigwam. The messenger in 
due time returned, bringing with him the celebrated speech which has given 
its author an immortality almost as imperishable as that of the great Athe- 
nian orator. The speech was probably prepared by Colonel John Gibson, 
and polished either by himself or some one else skilled in the art of com- 
position. Its authorship has been ascribed to Mr. Jefferson. But ^fter 
reading the highly eulogistic terms in which that gentleman speaks of it, 
one could hardly suppose it to have been written by him. He says : ' I may 
challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more 
eminent orator (if Europe has furnished a more eminent), to produce a 
single passage superior to it.' This would be rather too much for any 
modest writer to sa}^ of his own performance. It may be added, that De Witt 
Clinton indorsed the opinion expressed by Mr. Jefferson as to this celebrated 
speech. 

"But that the intelligent reader may judge for himself, the speech of 
Logan, as found in Jefferson's Notes, is given here : 

" * I appeal,' says he, ' to any white man to say, if he ever entered 
Logan's cabin hungr}^ and he gave him not meat ; if he ever came cold 
and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long 
and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin and advocated peace. 
Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 141 

passed and said, " Logan is the friend of the white man." I had even 
thought to live with 3'ou but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, 
the last Spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations 
of Logan, not even sparing nn- women and children. There runs not a 
drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me 
for revenge. I have sought it ; I have killed many ; I have fully glutted 
my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace, but do 
not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. 
He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for 
Logan ? Not one.' 

*' In the year 1777 the Indians, being urged by British agents, became 
very troublesome to the frontier settlements, manifesting much appearance 
of hostility, when Cornstalk, with Redhawk, paid a visit to the garrison 
at Point Pleasant. He made no secret of the disposition of the Indians, 
declaring that on his part he was opposed to joining in the war on the side 
of the British, but that all the nations except himself and his own tribe 
were determined to engage in it, and that of course he and his tribe 
w^ould have to run with the stream. 

"On this Captain Arbuckle thought proper to detain him, Redhawk, 
and another fellow as hostages, to prevent the nation from joining the 
British. 

" During our sta3' two young men by the names of Hamilton and 
Gilmore went over the Kanawha one day to hunt for deer. On their re- 
turn to camp, some Indians had concealed themselves on the bank, among 
some weeds, to view our encampment, and as Gilmore came along past 
them, they fired on him and killed him on the bank. 

" ' Captain Arbuckle and myself were standing on the opposite bank 
when the gun fired, and while we were considering who it could be shoot- 
ing contrar}^ to orders, or what they were doing over the river, we saw 
Hamilton run down the bank, who called out that Gilmore was killed. 
Gilmore was one of the company of Captain John Hall, of that part of the 
countrj^ now Rockbridge Count}-. The captain was a relation of Gilmore, 
whose family and friends were nearly all killed b}- the Indians in the 3-ear 
1763, when Greenbrier was cut off. Hall's men instantly jumped into a 
canoe and went to the relief of Hamilton, who was standing in momentary 
expectation of being put to death. They brought the corpse of Gilmore 
down the bank, covered \dth blood and scalped, and put him into the canoe. 



/42 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

As they were passing the river, I observed to Captain Arbuckle that the 
people would be for killing the hostages as soon as the canoe should land. 
He supposed they would not offer to commit so great a violence upon the 
innocent, who were in no wise accessory- to the murder of Gilmore. But 
the canoe had hardly touched the shore until the cry was raised, "Let us 
kill the Indians in the fort," and ever}- man, with gun in hand, came up the 
bank, full of rage. Captain Hall was at their head and led them. Captain 
Arbuckle and I met them, and endeavored to dissuade them from so un- 
justifiable an action ; but they cocked their guns, threatened us with in- 
stant death if we did not desist, rushed by us into the fort, and put the 
Indians to death. 

"*0n the preceding day. Cornstalk's son, Elinipsico, had come from 
the nation to see his father, and to know if he was well or alive. When 
he came to the river opposite the fort he hallooed. His father was at 
that instant in the act of delineating, at our request, with chalk on the 
floor, a map of the country and the waters between the Shawanese towns 
and the Mississippi. He immediately recognized the voice of his son, got 
up, went out, and answered him. The young fellow crossed over, and they 
embraced each other in the most tender and affectionate manner. As the 
men advanced to the door Cornstalk rose up and met them. They fired upon 
him, and seven or eight bullets went through him. So fell Cornstalk, the 
great warrior, whose name was bestowed upon him by the consent of the 
nation as their great strength and support. His son was shot dead as he 
sat upon a stool. Redhawk made an attempt to go up the chimney, but 
was shot down. The other Indian was shamefully mangled, and I grieved 
to see him so long in the agonies of death. 

** The murder of Cornstalk and his party of course produced its nat- 
ural effect, deciding the wavering Shawanese to join the other tribes as 
allies of the British, and converting them from possible friends of the Amer- 
ican cause into the most bitter and relentless enemies." 

During the entire period of the Revolutionary War there was 
an almost constant succession of daring raids and desperate 
encounters upon the Western frontier. 

Furnished with' English weapons, and occasionally led by 
British officers, the Indians made constant inroads into Ken- 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 143 

tucky and Western Virginia; and hardly one of the scattered 
settlements south of the Ohio River escaped without severe 
loss, even when its defenders succeeded in beating back their 
assailants. A death of torture, or a captivity which beggars de- 
scription, awaited the hapless prisoners, taken from their fancied 
security in the distant regions far back of the line of block- 
houses and stations. In fact, there was no assurance or hope of 
safety for the women and children, except the shelter of the little 
log forts, which were defended by the rifles of the matchless 
marksmen of the border. 

The most life-like sketches of the time which we have been 
able to glean from the early chronicles, have already been pre- 
sented to the reader in brief extracts from the traditions and 
records of the '' Early Settlements." Nearly all of these sketches 
belong to the sparsely inhabited era; yet we must not lose sight 
of the fact that the increase and growth of these settlements 
brought a fuller life into the wilderness. 

In Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Pennsylvania "block- 
houses " were still in existence during the last decade of the 
eighteenth century, but around each a village had grown. The 
forests between the "stations " were cut by wide swaths of clear- 
ings ; homely little cabins were nestled at the base of the linked 
chain of the beautiful rounded hills, which are the most distinct- 
ive characteristic of the valley of the Ohio ; and the more pre- 
tentious log houses of the "proprietors" dotted the rich bottom- 
lands of the south-eastern affluents of the River. 

The advent of this semi-civilization had changed and soft- 
ened the savage features of the wilderness. The tangled soli- 
tudes were awakening into a new life. This rich wild nature — 
heretofore jealously guarding her hidden treasures — was now an 



144 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

open book to the Surve^yor, who had followed hard upon the 
footsteps of the Pionker. 

Indian trails were enlarging into "new roads;" openings, 
where adventurous backwoodsmen had " cleared their lots," were 
closing up and coming together; and the regular weekly "mail- 
wagon " rattled across the " corduroy bridges," or changed horses 
at the log stable, under shady, overarching trees ; where, within 
a past which could be counted by single numbers, the express- 
rider had ridden in hot haste to distance a bullet or pass an am- 
buscade before the deadly tomahawk could disable his horse or 
strike him from his seat. 

From the villages, where the houses clustered together for 
good neighborship as well as for defense, the " clearings " began 
to stretch out over the swelling ridges, exhibiting their summer's 
wealth in wide, billowy waves of yellow corn and green pastures ; 
and on the sunny southern slopes peach and apple orchards 
marked the coming of spring, with their delicate sweet blossoms. 
The bronze-crested, flame-throated, purple-winged humming-bird, 
leaving his Winter home by the Gulf, came up the river when he 
knew the wild honeysuckles would be in bloom; but the 
orchard scents caught him, and he forgot the pretty wild things 
in the glen, and hung in mid-air above the lovely buds, in the 
rapt delight of a new joy. All the twittering little feathered 
creatures, that care for man and seek his companionship, came 
flocking into the open glades that edged the deeper forests; for 
the Dark and Bloody Ground was losing its somber shades, and 
its haunted forest-aisles were no longer the hiding-places of the 
death-dealing red men. The fiat had gone forth ; the land-loving 
Saxon and his affiliated Celtic brother had won, and would hold, 
the south bank of " The White Shining River," which the tribes 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 145 

were never more to see. In their visions of the happy hunting- 
grounds there would be a reproduction of its banks ; or at least a 
dream-given likeness in those far-awa}^ shining shores of peace. 

On the north bank the contest was about to begin on a larger 
scale. War was to be war. Squadrons of horsemen, companies 
of infantry, troops marching with banners, were now about to 
drive the Indians to that uncertain North-west which is always 
changing its boundaries. From the beginning of time, as time 
is counted by struggles and battles, the Indians were always on 
the losing side. As allies of the French they were conquered by 
the KngHsh ; as allies of the English they fought through the 
Revolution, and for years after the surrender of Cornwallis kept 
the war spirit, which is the spirit of hell, alive upon the border. 
The fire of hatred between the borderer and the Indian wasunex- 
tinguishable. At every breath of rumour hostilities broke out 
afresh. Foot by foot the Eastern tribes had been driven to the 
Alleghanies, across the chain, into the fertile belts and magnificent 
forests of the loveliest of lovely river valleys. There they would 
have rested, and for that they joined the confederacy of the 
Miamis. But the Saxon followed hard and fast. Their new al- 
lies in the West were to suffer defeat and loss, and the broad free 
lands of all the nations, watered by the most beautiful of the tribu- 
taries of the RivKR which was their pride and their delight, were 
to be the spoil of the conquerors. 

Every defeat compelled the tribes to go backward. Every 
treaty of peace was an enforced sale of the lands upon which 
they collected the peltries that brought them comparatively 
nothing, but that made the gains of the white trader. 

Their removal from the Ohio had now come to be a question 
of life and death to the tribes upon the Ohio ; for year by year 



146 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

they were steadily nearing the Mississippi, and near by the 
Mississippi were their un-friends, the IlUnois, and across the 
Mississippi their deadly enemies, the Sioux. The wisest of 
their chiefs, their prophets, foretold their utter destruction, and 
the warriors understood that the final day of resistance had 
come. The tomahawk, the scalping-knife, the rifle, and their 
most desperate powers of endurance and resistance, must decide 
their ownership of any lands east of the Mississippi; for if they 
made friends with the Illinois, and found favor with the haughty, 
imperious Sioux, who could assure them that the persistent 
** lyong Knives" would not cross the mighty waters ? All through 
the century they had been fighting the same foe — the same Vir- 
ginia and Penns3'lvania pioneers — the men who preferred the 
hunting, the rude sports, and the desperate frays of the border 
to the ways of peace. 

Back of the "Long Knives" a different, yet a no less per- 
sistent and inimical people, were following in their wake.* The 
New Englander had heard of the fertile valleys ; of the land flow- 
ing, if not "with milk and honey," with the traffic that breeds 
riches. He was as godly a sectarist as could be found in the 
fighting Scotch-Irish stock; and though a less picturesque figure 
than the sturdy pioneer, he had come to stay. This new-comer 
felt it to be part of the eternal fitness of things, for the rough 
fellow in the hunting-shirt and the buckskin breeches to go on- 
ward, while he rested upon the rich lands which bordered the 
broad-bosomed river. 

The ist of March, 1784, Virginia ceded her North-west Ter- 
ritory to the United States, to be laid out and formed into 
States, "having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and in- 
dependence as the other States." Among other conditions, 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 147 

"they were to be FrKE Statks," and all "French Canadians, 
and other settlers," were to "hold their possessions in peace." 
The Virginia Ohio Company had builded forts, and assisted 
with material aid the men who fought the Indians and the English 
through the dark days of the Colonies and the sufferings of the 
Revolution ; fought every step of the road of conquest, from 
the topmost ridge of the Alleghanies to the Falls of the Ohio, 
until the fight for the river was won. The next work to be 
done — w^ork in which all must assist, for the newly arrived settler 
on the north bank must be protected — was the pacificatio?i or the 
extermination of the Miamis and their new^ allies. 

Pontiac was dead. Little Turtle was as 3^et an unknown 
quantity among the chiefs. The government was about to 
build defensive works, to be commanded and held by regulars, 
and a fair contingent of armed troops were to be assembled 
within striking distance of the malcontents, who " wxre sulking 
in their villages." This was the situation in the last decade of 
the eighteenth century. 

The gallant but unfortunate, or incapable (a question never 
settled conclusively) St. Clair, had been appointed by Washing- 
ton Governor of the North-west Territory. His head- 
quarters were at Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum — 
one of the several towns founded the same year in which Lo- 
santiville (Cincinnati) was laid out. The following extracts, 
collected and condensed from the " St. Clair Papers," are prob- 
ably fairer in expression than the almost universal condem- 
nation of his contemporaries, and for that reason will best tell 
the story of the defeat, which ended in a disgraceful rout : 

"Receiving from Major Hamtramck the information that Antoine 
GameUn had failed to persuade the Wabash Indians to enter into a treaty 



148 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Governor St. Clair hastened to complete tlie work of organization. 
Before liis departure for Philadelphia, he wrote to Major Hamtramck, ad- 
vising him of his purpose to prepare for a military movement against the 
Indians on the Wabash, and that Colonel Sargent would proceed to Post 
Vincennes, to make the civil appointments and organize the militia. The 
report of Mr. Gamelin is of extraordinary interest. It shows that the 
machinations of Brant and his British friends had been successful, that 
the Indians proposed to fight, and expected to force the Americans back 
across the Ohio. 

" General St. Clair, after conferring with General Harmar, determined 
to send an expedition against the Maumee towns, under the command of 
that officer. A circular letter was issued to the county lieutenants of Ken- 
tucky and Western Pennsylvania, informing them that there was no pros- 
pect of a peace with the tribes on the Wabash, and instructing them to 
call out the militia allotted to their respective counties, to meet at Fort 
Washington by the I5tli of September. 

"When the militia did arrive. General Harmar was much disheartened, 
as they were ' raw, and unused to the gun or woods.' In addition, a large 
portion of the arms were unfit for use, many of the muskets and rifles 
being without locks. The militia officers quarreled, and the men were 
insubordinate. Colonel Hardin was the senior officer, yet some of the men 
declared they would return home unless another officer could lead them, 
and a compromise became necessary. 

" When on the march, October 2d, the force was reviewed, it was 
found to consist of three hundred and twenty regulars, under the im- 
mediate command of Majors Wyllys and Doughty, and one thousand one 
hundred and thirty-three militia, under the command of Colonel Hardin, 
an old Continental officer. The route was by old Chillicothe, at the head- 
waters of the IvittleMiami ; thence to Mad River, and thence to the Miami, 
which they struck near the ruins of the old trading-post. 

" Here they captured a Shawanese Indian, who informed them that 
the Indians were leaving their village (distant about thirty miles), as fast 
as possible. Colonel Hardin was detached with six hundred light troops 
and one company of regulars. He was instructed to push for the Miami 
village, which was at the junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary Rivers, 
and take every precaution to keep his men under strict discipline. When 
he reached the village, on the T5th, he found it deserted. On the 17th he 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 149 

was joined by the main body, and the order was given for the destruction 
of the buildings, and the vast fields of corn stretching along the bottoms 
of the streams. 

" On the following day Colonel Trotter was ordered out with three 
hundred militia and thirty regulars, under Captain Armstrong, with in- 
structions to see if he could find traces of the Indians. He returned at 
night without having accomplished any thing. The next day Colonel 
Hardin went out with the same command. Before he had proceeded 
very far many of the militia deserted. When distant from camp ten 
miles, he suddenly came upon about one hundred Indians, and was en- 
tirely defeated. At the moment of attack by the Indians, the remainder 
of the militia fled, without firing a shot. The regulars stood firm, and 
suffered severely. 

" On the 2ist, the army — having burned the chief town and five of the 
Indian villages, and destroyed twenty thousand bushels of corn in the ear, 
the object of the expedition — took up their line of march back to Fort Wash- 
ington, and encamped eight miles from the ruins. At nine o'clock, at the 
solicitation of Colonel Hardin, General Harniar ordered out four hundred 
men, including sixty regulars, under Major Wyllys, with instructions to go 
back to the Indian town on the head-waters of the Miami, to surprise any 
parties that might have returned there. The militia came upon a few In- 
dians immediately after crossing the river, put them to flight, and, con- 
trary to orders, the pursuit was continued up the St. Joseph for several 
miles. The center, composed of the regular troops, was soon afterwards 
attacked by the main body of the Indians, under Little Turtle, and al- 
though they fought with desperation, were obliged to give way. The few 
survivors fled in the direction taken by the militia, and met them returning 
from the pursuit of the scattering Indians. They were followed by the 
Indians, who attempted to pass the stream, but were repulsed. The troops, 
after collecting the wounded, returned to camp. The regulars lost two 
officers. Major Wyllys and Lieutenant Frothingham. 

" The result of St. Clair's visit to Philadelphia, and his report on affairs 
in the territory, was : First, to send a formidable military force into the 
Miami country to erect a series of forts, as recommended by him the pre- 
ceding year ; and secondly, to send minor expeditions against the Wabash 
tribes to punish them for their marauding in the spring of 1790. A new 
regiment was to be added to the military force, and General St. Clair was 



I50 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

to conduct the expedition against the Miami towns in person, with General 
Richard Butler second in command. The equipment was to be complete 
in all respects, and the most cordial co-operation was promised by the War 
Department. 

" The following entry is found in Major Denny's journal, under the date 
of September ist: ' General St. Clair appears exceeding impatient at the de- 
lay or detention of some of the corps.' 

" It was the 7th of September before General Butler and Quarter- 
master-General Hodgden arrived at Fort Washington. St, Clair had al- 
ready moved forward his two thousand men — 7iot three thousand effectives, 
as promised by the Secretary of War — about twenty-four miles. Forts 
Hamilton and Jefferson were constructed under the greatest difficulties, as 
the rainy season had set in. 

" The 24th of October the little army left Fort Jefferson, and moved 
through the wilderness towards the Maumee, where another fort was to be 
erected. The frost had cut off the forage, the men were on half rations, 
and the militia deserted in such numbers that the general found it neces- 
sary to dispatch Major Hamtramck with the First Regiment, three hundred 
strong, to arrest them and bring up the provisions that were supposed to 
be en route. 

" Every precaution was taken on the march and in camp to guard 
against a surprise. On the 3d of November, 1791, the troops encamped on 
high ground on a small creek, supposed to be a branch of the Maumee, 
but which was, in fact, a branch of the Wabash. The high ground was 
barely sufficient for the regulars in rather contracted lines. The militia, 
under Colonel Oldham, passed beyond the creek a quarter of a mile, and 
encamped in parallel lines. Before midnight General Butler dispatched 
Captain Slough, with thirty-two men, to reconnoiter in front of the lines. 
He saw enough Indians to confirm the opinion that the troops would be 
attacked in the vs; orning. He immediately returned to camp and commu- 
nicated to General Butler what he had learned, and added that, if thought 
proper, he would make the report to General St. Clair. General Butler re- 
mained silent for some time, and then remarked that he * must feel fatigued, 
and he had better go and lie down.' Captain Slough obeyed. 

" General Butler neither communicated to General St. Clair the infor- 
mation, nor took any further precaution against the enemy. On the morn- 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 151 

iiig of the 4th, a half hour before sunrise, an attack was made on the 
militia. The militia fled pell-mell through the first line of regulars, who 
were attempting to form. However, the enemy was well received by the 
front line ; but almost instantly the entire camp seemed to be surrounded 
by an unseen foe. 

" The men were pressed toward the center, and fell by scores under 
the unerring aim of the savages, who fired from the woody covert sur- 
rounding them. 

" General St. Clair, who had left his sick quarters upon the first fire, 
repeatedly directed the men to charge against the skulking foe, who fled 
before the ba3'onet, and then returned to the attack. 

" The uniforms of the officers attracted the aim of the savages, and 
they fell on every hand. Among those wounded early in the engagement 
was General Butler, but he continued to urge resistance. When, at last, 
all of the artillery officers had been either killed or wounded, and the fire 
of the Indians was so near and deadly as to threaten the annihilation of 
the force, preparation was made for a retreat. 

*' A last charge was made against the enemy, and a retreat accom- 
plished. 'At the moment of the retreat,' says Major Denny, 'one of the few 
horses saved had been procured for the general ; he was on foot until then ; 
I kept by him, and he delayed to see the rear come up.' The general then 
commanded Major Denny to ' push to the front and rally a force sufficient 
to check the panic' Then he turned his attention to the care of those who 
were partially disabled by wounds. As he and the officer in command of 
the rear-guard moved over the route, evidence was seen on every hand that 
the retreat had been a disgraceful flight, even to the very gates of Fort 
Jefferson, where, at last, under the assuring presence of Major Hamtramck's 
regulars, terror gave place to confidence. 

" The killed and missing officers numbered thirty-seven, and the 
privates five hundred and ninety-three ; the wounded, thirty-one officers, 
and two hundred and fifty-two privates. Not an officer exposed himself 
as much as the general, and yet it was always with a calm courage, seek- 
ing to reach the enemy effectively. ' I have nothing to lay to the charge 
of the troops,' said he in his official report, ' but their want of discipline, 
which from the short time they had been in service, it was impossible they 
should have acquired, and which rendered it very difficult, when they 



152 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

were thrown into confusion, to reduce them again to order, and this is 
one reason why the loss has fallen so heavy on the officers, who did every 
thing in their power to re-form the troops.' 

" It seems surprising, in reviewing the evidence of so many witnesses, 
that the commanding general, who was believed to be competent, whose 
courage had been often proved, who knew the superiority of the Indian 
forces — warriors trained to war from infancy — should think of hazarding, 
with such disorderly troops, and under such circumstances, his reputation 
and life, and the lives of others. 

" St. Clair asked to have an inquiry made by military officers, but that 
being impracticable^ the matter came before Congress, and was there 
thoroughly examined. 

" After his return to Fort Washington, on the 9th of November, St. 
Clair wrote his official dispatch to the Secretary of War, which contained 
a comprehensive account of the disastrous campaign. There is no fault- 
finding, no allusion to the shameful mismanagement in the War Depart- 
ment, and nothing as to the neglect of Colonel Oldham and General Butler 
to advise him of the presence of the enemy on the night of the 3d of 
November. Major Denny was charged with its prompt delivery, and ^ar- 
riving in Philadelphia at a late hour on the 19th, he waited immediately 
upon the Secretary of War and delivered the dispatches. 

" The President declared that General St. Clair should have justice. 

" * More satisfactory testimony in favor of St. Clair is furnished by the 
circumstance that he still retained the undiminished esteem and good 
opinion of Washington.' This we read in the work of Chief-Justice 
Marshall. St. Clair resigned his conmission in the army, and General 
Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed him in April, 1792. 

"The whole country had been thrown into consternation and mourn- 
ing by the news of the defeat of St. Clair. A succession of disasters to 
the American arms had rendered the Indian war, to the last degree, unpop- 
ular ; and no little of the odium attached itself to the Administration under 
whose auspices it had been conducted. Parties had already developed 
themselves in Congress and the nation, and the conduct of the Indian 
war furnished abundant ground for the ill-disposed to raise charges 
against, and excite distrust of, the wisdom of the Administration. 

"Thus situated, to sustain the honor of the government, to vindicate 
the superiority of the American arms, to arrest the clamor of party, to 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 153 

give protection to the frontier settlements, and, if possible, to restore a 
safe and lasting peace with the Indian Nations, new measures were to be 
adopted. 

"The highest exercise of the wisdom of Washington, in the selection 
of a commander-in-chief for the arnn^ was demanded ; for on this selection, 
more than on any which had been made since the commencement of the 
Revolutionary War, every thing dear to the country depended. Having 
acted with Wayne in the most trying scenes of the Revolutionary War, 
the President had a thorough knowledge of his fitness for the important 
command. 

"On the 25th of May, 1792, Wayne having been furnished, by the Sec- 
retary of War, with the instructions of the President, in which it was 
emphatically expressed ' that another defeat would be inexpressibly ruin- 
ous to the reputation of the government,' immediately took leave of his 
family and friends, and repaired to Pittsburgh, the place appointed for the 
rendezvous of the troops, wdiere he arrived early in June. 

" General Wayne did not permit the summer to pass without adopting 
proper measures to ascertain the strength and disposition of the hostile 
Indians. Efforts were made to impress on their minds the earnest desire 
of the American government to make peace on terms that should be mu- 
tually just and honorable, and yet to leave no doubt that, if war was pre- 
ferred by them, they would contend with a different force from that which 
they had previously encountered. Colonel Harding and Major Trueman 
were sent with flags of truce to the Indians, but they were both wantonly 
murdered. 

" In the meantime the Indians continued their raids upon the frontier, 
except in the immediate neighborhood of posts occupied by detachments 
of troops, and many valuable lives were lost. 

" Suitable winter quarters having been selected by Wayne, the army 
left Pittsburgh on the 28th of November, and took up a position on the 
Ohio, twenty-two miles below that place, and seven above the mouth of 
the Big Beaver, to which he gave the name of Legionville. Here the 
troops were hutted, the camp was fortified, and every possible preparation 
for defense adopted. 

"Anxious to conciliate the Six Nations of Indians, Wayne sent an invi- 
tation to two distinguished chiefs, Cornplanter and New Arrow, to visit 
him at Legionville, at which place they arrived in March, 1793. A toast was 



154 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

given by Cornplar.ter, at the general's table, which will show the terms on 
which they wished peace. ' My mind and heart are upon that river,' 
said Cornplanter, pointing to the Ohio ; ' may that water Ever con- 
tinue TO run and remain the BOUNDARY OF I.ASTING PEACE BETWEEN 

THE Americans and Indians on its opposite shores!' Such was the 
boundary-line fixed upon by friendly Indians. 

'* The winter was not productive of any striking events ; but early in 
April Wayne announced his readiness to descend the river, having a re- 
spectable body of well-disciplined troops, in whom he expressed perfect 
confidence, and the 30th of April, 1793, he left the camp at Legionville. 
The immediate destination of the troops was Fort Washington, then near 
the village, now the city, of Cincinnati. In six days the army arrived at the' 
fort; but Wayne preferred a position a mile below, and named the new 
camp ' Hobson's Choice.' There the troops were disciplined, and arrange- 
ments were adopted for bringing into service an auxiliary aid of mounted 
volunteers from Kentucky. 

" Intimations having been given by the Indians of a disposition to 
treat, a commission was appointed to meet them. As had been foreseen by 
Wayne, the negotiation failed. The Indians haughtily and peremptorily 
insisting 'that The Ohio be ESTabi^ished as the boundary, on 
WHICH terms aIvOne they WOUI.D condescend to grant peace to 
the United States.' But one course was left. 

" General Wayne now took the most prompt measures to advance into 
the Indian country. On the 7th of October the army marched from ' Hob- 
son's Choice,' and on the 13th took up a position six miles in advance of 
Fort Jefferson, on the south-west branch of the Miami. Wayne gave it the 
name of Greeneville, as a mark of respect to his Revolutionary friend, Major- 
General Greene. In a letter to the Secretary of War, dated from this camp, 
23d October, 1793, the general gives an account of an attack on the 17th 
upon one of his convoys of provisions, under Lieutenant Lowrey and 
Ensign Boyd, consisting of ninety men. These two officers bravely fell 
after an obstinate resistance against superior numbers. 

" In the meantime. General Scott, with a party of mounted men, ar- 
rived ; but the season was too far advanced, and the force assembled was 
inadequate for decisive, active, operations, and they were permitted to re- 
turn home. 

" On December 23d General Wayne dispatched Major Burbeck, with 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 55 

eight companies of foot and a detachment of artillerj', with orders io pos- 
sess themselves of the field of St. Clair's defeat, November 4, 1791, and 
there to fortify. To this post was given the name of Fort Recovery. For 
the purpose of encouraging the troops who were ordered on this service, 
as well as for that of superintending the contemplated works, Wayne per- 
sonally advanced to the same point, with a small re-enforcement of mounted 
infantry, accompanied by the officers mentioned in the following extract 
from general orders : ' The commander-in-chief returns his most grateful 
thanks to Major Henry Burbeck, and to every officer and private belonging 
to the detachment under his command, for their soldierly and exemplary 
good conduct during their late arduous tour of duty in repossessing Gen- 
eral St. Clair's field of battle, and erecting thereon Fort Recovery. 

" INIore anxious to produce dela}', and, perhaps, b}' their flags, to re- 
connoiter his position with safety than sincerely desirous of peace, the 
Indians, immediately after the erection of Fort Recovery, sent a pacific 
message to Wayne, and proposed that negotiations for a treaty should 
be opened, 'for the adjustment of all difficulties that existed.' Wayne, 
although he had no faith in their honesty of purpose, but regarded 
the proposal as a stratagem to further their hostile designs, did not feel 
himself warranted to decline the overture. He met their advance with a 
declaration of satisfaction ; professed his entire readiness to make peace 
on terms that should be just; and only required, on their part, the release 
of the captives in their possession, as a proof of their sincerity. The flag 
departed, being allowed thirty days to return with the final answer of 
their chiefs. 

"Upon the approach of spring, affairs assumed an aspect in the high- 
est degree interesting, and called for the full exercise of the vigilance and 
wisdom of the commander of the army. Prompt measures were taken to 
garrison Fort Massac, thirt3^-eight miles above the mouth of the Ohio. 
The spoliations upon American commerce, and the hostile spirit of Great 
Britain, gave strong reasons to fear a war with that nation. Thus sur- 
rounded with difficulties and dangers, placed in circumstances which were 
as delicate as they were new and embarrassing, Wayne rose in proportion 
to the pressure, and showed that his abilities were equal to the emergency. 

" In a letter from the Secretary of War, Wayne was authorized, should 
he deem it proper, to take the British fort on the rapids of the Miami. To 
the discretion of Wayne was therefore confided, not^only the sole conduct 



156 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

of the Indian war, but the authority to take a step which must certainly 
ijave involved the nation in war with Great Britain. The time for active 
operations having come, and the Indians having failed to enter into 
negotiations for peace, Wa3aie called upon the governor of Kentucky for 
two thousand mounted volunteers. 

"On the morning of the 30th of June an escort of ninety riflemen and 
fifty dragoons was attacked by a numerous bod}^ of Indians, under the 
walls of Fort Recovery, followed by a general assault upon that fort. The 
enemy, driven back by a deadly fire, renewed the attack with great spirit, 
but were finally repulsed with heavy loss. Circumstances, amounting 
nearly to positive proof, showed that the Indians were aided by a consider- 
able auxiliary British force. Thus, on the very ground which was the 
scene of their proudest victory, the Indians were taught to respect the 
strength of American arms. 

" It was past the middle of July before the mounted volunteers from 
Kentucky, under Major-General Scott, arrived at Greeneville. Every prep- 
aration which prudence could devise having been completed, Wayne 
moved with his main force, and but for the treachery and desertion of a 
soldier, the enemy would have suffered a complete surprise, when the 
troops arrived at Grand Glaize, in the very heart of the Indian settlements. 

*' Wayne entered the part of their settlement lying under the protec- 
tion of the garrison of a British fort, a bold step, but prudent. ' Thus,' says 
Wayne in a letter to General Knox, ' we have gained possession of the 
grand emporiviui of the hostile Indians in the West without loss of blood.' 

"He inmiediately erected a strong fortification at the confluence of 
the Auglaize and the Maumee, to which he gave the name ' Fort Defiance.' 
Though now prepared to strike the blow, the commander of the army, 
generous as brave, made one last effort to restore tranquillity without the 
further effusion of blood. 

" Stimulated by their British allies, however, the Indians resolved to 
abide the issue of an engagement, and rejected the proposed offer. 

"That engagement almost immediately followed, and a letter from 
Wayne to the Secretary of War described the engagement. From that 
letter the following extracts are taken : 

"'It is with infinite pleasure that I now announce to you the brilliant 
success of the Federal arm)^ under my command. . . . 

"'The enemy advanced from this place on the 15th, and arrived at 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 157 

Roche de Bout on the i8th; the 19th we were employed in making a tem- 
porary post for the reception of our stores and baggage, and in recon- 
noitering the position of the enemy, who were encamped behind a thick, 
bushy wood and the British fort. 

" 'At eight o'clock on the morning of the 20th the army again advanced 
in columns, agreeably to the standing order of march. After advancing 
about five miles, Major Price's corps received so severe a fire from the 
try 2niy, who were secreted in the woods and high grass, as to compel them 
to retreat. 

" ' The legion was immediately formed in two lines, principally in a close, 
4hick wood, which extended for miles on our left. . . . 

" ' I soon discovered, from the weight of the fire and extent of their 
lines, that the enemy were in full force in front, in possession of their fa- 
vorite ground, and endeavoring to turn our left flank. I therefore gave 
orders for the second line to advance to support the first, and directed 
Major-General Scott to gain and turn the right flank of the savages, 
with the whole of the mounted volunteers, by a circuitous route ; at the 
same time I ordered the front line to advance with trailed arms and 
rouse the Indians from their coverts at the point of the bayonet, and, when 
up, to deliver a close and well-directed fire on their backs, followed by a 
brisk charge, so as not to give time to load again. 

"'All those orders were obeyed with spirit and promptitude; but such 
was che impetuosity of the charge by the first line of infantry, that the In- 
dians and Canadian militia and volunteers were driven from all their coverts 
in so short a time that, although every exertion was used by the officers of 
the second legion, and by some of the mounted volunteers, to gain their 
proper positions, yet but a part of each could get up in season to partici- 
pate in the action ; the enemy being driven, in the course of one hour, more 
than two miles, through the thick woods already mentioned, by less than 
one-half their numbers. 

" ' The enemy amounted to two thousand combatants ; the troops act- 
ually engaged against them were short of nine hundred. This horde of 
savages, with their allies, abandoned themselves to flight, and dispersed 
with terror and dismay, leaving our victorious army in full and quiet pos- 
session of the field of battle, which terminated within range of the guns 
of the British garrison. The loss of the enemy was more than double that 
of the Federal army. 



/58 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

" * We remained three days and nights on the banks of the Maumee, in 
front of the field of battle, during which time all the houses and corn-fields 
were consumed and destroyed for a considerable distance. 

" * The army returned to this place on the 27th, laying waste the villages 
and corn-fields for fifty miles on each side of the Maumee. ... 

" ' Anthony Wayne. 

** * Dated, Grand Glaize, 28th August, 1794' 

"In this decisive action the whole of Wayne's army in killed and 
wounded amounted only to one hundred and seven men. The loss of the 
enemy was more than double the number. The victory of the 20th of Au- 
gust, so glorious to the American arms, and the subsequent movement of 
the army, produced the most decisive effects. The lofty spirit of the In- 
dians was broken, and the chiefs and warriors came forward and sued 
for peace." 

Among the young soldiers who fought through their first 
campaign with "Mad Anthony" was a Virginian boy of twenty, 
whose gallantry won for him a place among the epauletted aideSy 
and honorable mention in the order issued after the first battle. 
His people were "Colonial Virginians," his father had put his 
life in jeopardy by signing the Declaration of Independence. 
The boy was well born and well bred ; but he carried the lightly 
filled purse which, of necessity, had to stipply the wants of a 
younger son of a not over-rich country gentleman, whose estate 
had been taxed to provide for his servants and his family, 
while he faithfully filled the position of a delegate from Virginia 
in the Continental Congress. 

In the olden-time generosity and hospitality were heavy task- 
masters ; and, when Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley died, all that 
could be done for his third son was to send him to his guardian 
in Philadelphia — Robert Morris, of Revolutionary memory — who 
placed him as a student of medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush. 
The excitement on the frontier was so great that its echo dis- 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 159 

turbed the calm repose of Philadelphia. The pulses of the 
placid " Friends" beat a trifle faster at the coming in of the daily 
stage which brought ominous news from the new settlements 
and the little army posts on the border. 

The medical student's position was a thing of duty, not 
of choice; and now, from the stand-point of a born fighter, 
he began to see that it was altogether a more attractive ca- 
reer — and one that could placate duty with the plea of a 
greater need — to make wounds than to heal them. He reasoned 
with his guardian, with that impetuosity of youth which wins 
reason with the reasonableness of the thing it desires; and, be- 
sides, he pleaded the case with another old friend of his father's, 
who, caring for the service as well as for the boy, and having the 
power to serve his friend's son by serving the service, gave him 
an ensign's commission and sent him to Fort Washington to 
heat or cool his blood, according to the quality of his metal, with 
the sight of a routed army broken into fragments by a massacre 
unparalleled in the lesser horrors of all previous loss. Through 
sleet and snow the ensign's first march was back to the battle- 
ground of the dead, to bury the remains of the stricken — to 
gather the bloody harvest that cumbered the field of St. 
Clair's defeat. 

In 1792 General Wayne was appointed to command the 
United States Legion, and young Harrison was promoted to a 
lieutenancy under that gallant soldier and rigid disciplinarian; 
who was attracted to the energetic, prompt, fearless, yet atten- 
tively obedient young subaltern. In a general order after the 
battle of the 23d December, General Wayne publicly thanked 
lyieutenant Harrison for his gallantry and good conduct. Again, 
in the fight with "the Little Turtle," August 20, 1794, when 



l6o THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Wa3'ne won so signal a victory, Harrison was mentioned and 
thanked in the general orders. Upon the conclusion of the treaty 
wath the Indians, Harrison was promoted to the rank of captain, 
and placed in command at Fort Washington. 

At the death of General Wayne, in 1797, Captain Harrison 
left the army, and retired to his farm until he received his first 
civil appointment, that of secretary of the North-w^estern Terri- 
tor3\ and, ex officio, lieutenant-governor. His conduct in the 
office of secretary, and his sincerity and courteous manners, won 
him the confidence and good-will of all with whom he came in 
contact; and when, in the following year, the North-western 
Territory entered into the second grade of government, and the 
people were about to elect a delegate to Congress, he was the 
first representative chosen to fill that office. In the year 1800 
the North-western Territory was divided. The part included 
within the present boundaries of Ohio and Michigan retained its 
new name, and the country to the north-west received the name 
of Indiana, the governorship of which was conferred by Jeffer- 
son on William Henry Harri&or. 

The powers intrusted to Ha.rison as governor of Indiana, 
and the extent of the territory confided to his jurisdiction, 
greater than had ever been heretofore committed to the charge 
of any citizen of the United States, except General Washington, 
burdened him with an immen^-e responsibility. Indiana had then 
the boundaries of an empire, and to its governor almost unlim- 
ited power had been given. Ohio, having been cut out of the 
North-west Territory — ceded by Virginia to the United States — 
with definite boundaries, the remainder of the territory beyond 
the Ohio and Mississippi fell within his jurisdiction, including 
the wide regions that now compose the States north-west of the 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. i6i 

Ohio and east of the Mississippi ; and, in fact, for a period of 
nearly two years the whole of Louisiana, which was attached to 
Indiana on its purchase in 1803, and was not erected into a sep- 
arate territory until July, 1805. 

The intermediate country was in possession of the Indians, 
and was visited by hunters, who were almost constantly em- 
broiled with the savages. The tribes were restless and dissat- 
isfied. Between the distant settlements the roads were the paths 
beaten by the Indians, and which Avere without ferries or even 
the rude bridges of the frontier. The seat of government was at 
Vincennes, a village beautifully situated on the Wabash, which 
was inhabited chiefly by the descendants of the French, who 
had built the town in the seventeenth century; and who, although 
attached to the new authority recently placed over them, were 
entirely unacquainted with our language and law^s, and much 
preferred the simple institutions under w^hich they had hitherto 
lived. Numerous tribes of Indians inhabited the vast wilder- 
ness lying beyond these settlements; and the British traders 
from Canada carried on with them a constant and lucrative 
traffic, to keep which, and to prevent the competition of the 
enterprising American trader, they used every effort to preserve 
the favor of the Indians, to detach them from the Americans, and 
to prejudice them against both the people and the Govern- 
ment. Intrigues were rife, for the date preceded the second war 
with Great Britain. 

In 1805 the territory of Indiana w^as erected into the second 
grade of government. By this change the people advanced one 
step towards the right of suffrage and self-government. They 
elected the members of the popular branch of the Legislature, 
and the latter nominated ten persons, from which number Con- 



i62 THJE PlCTUkESQUE OHIO. 

gress chose five, who constituted the Upper House. The Assem- 
bly thus organized appointed a delegate to Congress, who repre- 
sented the Territory in that body, and was intrusted with the 
management of the business of the Territory. This change was 
urgently pressed by General Harrison, although it deprived him 
of much power and great patronage. 

In the year 1806 the celebrated Indian, Ol-li-wa-chi-ca, the 
Prophet, called by some writers Els-kwa-taw-a, and his dis- 
tinguished brother, Tecumseh, began to threaten the frontier 
of Indiana by a series of intrigues which produced the most 
unexpected results. Tecumseh had matured a plan to unite 
all the western tribes in a league against the United States, 
with the hope and expectation that the combined tribes would 
be strong enough to capture all the western settlements, and 
drive the settlers out of the great valley of the Mississippi 
and the lands north of the Ohio. The daring warrior visited 
the different tribes, and appealed earnestly to their patriotism, 
recalling the recollection of their wrongs, using in this effort 
the subtle diplomac}^ with which he was so consummately gifted, 
and the terse, strong oratory which, in its effect upon the 
tribes, reminds the reader of the battle-kindling eloquence of 
Demosthenes. 

The two brothers, born at the same birth, differed widely in 
character, but were admirably fitted to act in concert in the 
confederation of the Nations now divided by jealousies and 
feuds. Tecumseh was daring and sagacious, a persuasive speaker, 
an able military chief, and a successful diplomatist. He was de- 
voted to his people, and equally intense in his hatred of the 
white race, against whom he had sworn eternal vengeance. Pe- 
culiarly gifted with the firmness and tact which distinguishes all 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 163 

great leaders, full of enthusiasm, he appealed successfully both 
to the passions and convictions of the Indians. 

The prophet had few of the manlier qualities of Tecumseh. 
He was not a warrior, as the Indian understood war, and was 
only an indifferent hunter. Haughty, crafty, and cruel, he was 
also indolent and selfish. Yet a variety of accidental circum- 
stances gave him an ascendency over the tribes which his own 
ability could not have achieved. 

The superior mind of Tecumseh had obtained a complete 
mastery over that of the prophet ; and in council the latter 
rarely spoke, although a more fluent speaker than the great 
warrior.' His manner is said to have been exceedingly graceful. 
Without the dignity and sagacity of Tecumseh, he advocated a 
more dangerous, because a more sinister, policy. Up to the 
3^ear 181 1 Tecumseh and his brother were engaged in constant 
intrigues to array the tribes against the United States. They 
were " in the opposition " at all the councils that were held, and 
earnestly endeavored to prevent every treaty that was made. 
Yet they carefully avoided an outbreak of hostilities before a 
combination could be effected. In 1808, while his brother was 
in Florida proposing an alliance with the Southern Indians, the 
prophet established his principal residence on the Wabash, near 
the mouth of the Tippecanoe. Here all the young warriors 
rallied around him, and the allies assumed a bolder and more 
threatening attitude. The}^ sallied forth in greater or smaller 
parties, and under the pretense of hunting and visiting the 
neighboring tribes they were committing depredations upon, 
and threatening the settlers along the entire frontier. 

Vincennes, the seat of government, was constantly exposed 
to attack ; but the prophet, w^hile he appealed to their traditions 



l64 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

and plaved upon the superstition of his followers, was too 
indolent and too timid to enter vigoroush* into an}- aggressive 
action. His maladministration soon reduced the number of his 
adherents to less than three hundred; and these were so impov- 
erished \yy their long idleness and their excesses, that they would 
have star\^ed had not Governor Harrison given them a supply 
of provisions. The return of Tecumseh restored order. 

In 1809 Governor Harrison purchased from the Delawares, 
Miamis, and Pottawattamies a large tract of country- on both 
sides of the Wabash, and extending up that river about sixty 
miles above Vincennes. Tecumseh was away upon one of his long 
embassies when this sale was made. His brother, not thinking 
himself interested, made no opposition to the treaty ; but on his 
return Tecumseh expressed great dissatisfaction, and threatened 
the chiefs who had made the treaty with death. Hearing of his 
displeasure, the governor invited him to come to Vincennes, and 
assured him " that any claims he might have to the lands which 
had been ceded were not affected by the treat3^" 

Having no confidence in the friendliness of Tecumseh, the 
governor insisted that he should not bring with him more than 
thirty warriors; but he arrived with four hundred armed 
followers. 

The people of Vincennes were greatly alarmed, nor was the 
governor free from apprehension of intended treachery. The en- 
tire Territory consisted of three settlements, too far apart to rely 
upon each other for defensive support if the need should be sudden 
and imperative. In truth, if one were attacked, all were in 
jeopard3\ The scattered population, from Kaskaskia to Kahokia, 
on the Mississippi ; Clark's Grant, at the Falls of the Ohio ; and 
the old French town of Vincennes, would not count quite five 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 165 

thousand inhabitants, all told. It is easy to reckon the number 
of fighting men that could be spared upon so exposed a frontier 
from either settlement, when all were assailable, and none had 
a sufficiently strong force to resist the combined tribes of the 
New Confederation, thickly scattered within and upon the bor- 
ders of the Territory. Add to the w^eakness of the defensive 
force the threatening attitude of the Indians, who were jealous 
of every movement of the Americans ; the wanton provo- 
cation given to the tribes b}^ hunters and traders, who, presum- 
ing upon an enforced peace, insulted and cheated them ; and 
last, but by no means least, the intrigues of British agents, who 
did not scruple to go all lengths, when occasion offered, or the 
possible advantage was sufficiently tempting; and it will be easy 
to reckon the difficulties of the position. 

It is true that Governor Harrison had been invested with un- 
limited powers ; but with "unlimited powers " very limited means 
had been provided for enforcing authorit3\ The onl}- certainty 
upon which the governor could count was his iinliynited responsi- 
bility in event of failure. Such was the setting of the drama at 
Vincennes when the situation opened. 

A large portico in front of the governor's house had been 
prepared for the reception. There were seats provided for the 
Indian leaders, as well as for the citizens who were expected to 
attend. Tecumseh came from his camp outside of the town, 
with about forty of his warriors ; he stood in the grounds, refus- 
ing to enter, saying he " wished the council to be held under the 
shade of some trees in front of the house." As host, the gov- 
ernor consented to the wish of his guest. 

At this council, held the 12th of August, 18 10, Tecumseh, in 
the course of his speech, said : " Once there was no white man 



i65 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

in all this country ; then it belonged to red men, children of the 
same parents, placed on it by the Great Spirit, to keep it, to 
travel over it, to eat its fruits, and fill it with the same race ; but 
these red men and their children have been driven from the great 
salt water, forced over the mountains into the prairies, away from 
the River, which was a natural boundary; and now, if they do 
not resist, they will be pushed into the lakes. But they have 
determined to go no further. Each tribe can sell their lands, but 
all must join in the sale, for it requires all to make a bargain." 

Governor Harrison replied : " The government had found the 
different tribes mentioned in the sale occupying the lands," add- 
ing that he " believed that they owned it ; and it was useless to 
assert that the Indians were one nation, for if such had been the 
case, the Great Spirit would not have put six different tongues in 
their heads, but would have taught them all to speak one 
language ; that the Miamis had found it for their interest to sell 
a part of their lands, and receive for them a further annuity." 

The interpreter had scarcely finished, when Tecumseh fiercely 
exclaimed, "It is false !" and giving a signal to his warriors, 
they sprang upon their feet from the grass upon which they 
were sitting, seizing their war-clubs and tomahawks. The gov- 
ernor rose, placed his hand upon his sword, at the same time 
directing those of his friends and suite who were about him to 
stand upon their guard. Tecumseh addressed the Indians in an 
impassioned, earnest tone, which at times changed to what every 
listener felt to be fierce and violent invective. 

Major Floyd, who stood near the governor, drew his dirk; 
Winneneak, a friendly chief, cocked his pistol ; and Mr. Winans, 
a Methodist preacher, ran to the governor's house, seized a gun, 
and placed himself in the door to defend the family. For a few 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. ^ 1 6^ 

moments all expected a bloody ending to this first scene. But 
the governor kept cool, and told Tecumseh he must leave the 
settlement immediately. 

The next morning Tecumseh, having reflected on his impol- 
itic beginning, and, finding that he had to deal with a man as 
bold and vigilant as himself, apologized for the affront he had 
offered, and begged that the council might be renewed. 

To this the governor consented, determining to leave no exer- 
tion untried to carry into effect the pacific views of the govern- 
ment. To prevent a repetition of the scene, he ordered two 
companies of militia to be placed on duty within the village. 
Tecumseh presented himself with the same undaunted bearing 
which always marked him as a chieftain ; but he was now dig- 
nified and calm. The governor inquired whether he would 
forcibly oppose the survey of the purchase. He replied that he 
was determined to adhere to the old boundary, Then there 
arose a Wyandot, a Kickapoo, a Pottawattamie, an Ottawa, and a 
Winnebago chief, each declaring his determination to abide by 
Tecumseh's decision. The governor replied that "the words of 
Tecumseh should be reported to the President, who would take 
measures to enforce the treaty ;" and the council ended. 

The governor, still anxious to conciliate the haughty chief, 
went the next day to Tecumseh's camp ; but beyond the cool 
courtesy an Indian keeps for a parley which is intended to lead 
to a rupture, nothing was gained by the visit. 

In 1811, the near approach of a w^ar between the United 
States and Great Britain excited Tecumseh's hopes, and made 
him more daringly determined to ivy conclusions with the 
Americans. He began to assemble a new body of warriors at 
the Prophet's town; he then went south to draw their new 



l6$ THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

allies northward ; marauding parties roved more frequently than 
ever towards the settlements; and a number of people were 
murdered on the frontiers of Indiana and Illinois. These cir- 
cumstances warned the governor to place the Territory in the 
best attitude for defense which its limited resources would ad- 
mit. Very soon he was directed by the President to move with 
an armed force towards the Prophet's town. 

When the news reached Kentucky that Governor Harrison 
was authorized to march against the Indians, the public mind 
was excited to enthusiasm. The name of Harrison begot confi- 
dence and provoked expectation. Volunteers all along the bor- 
der at once announced their readiness to follow his standard. 
The Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry, commanded 
by Colonel Boyd, was placed under his orders. The army then 
consisted of about nine hundred men. On the 28th of October, 
181 1, the troops began their march from Fort Harrison, on the 
Wabash, about sixty miles abovfe Vincennes. 

The advance to Tippecanoe was conducted with great pru- 
dence. The country through which the army passed was chiefly 
beautiful, open prairie, intersected by thick woods, overflowing 
creeks, and deep ravines. 

To deceive the enemy, the governor caused a road to be 
"blazed" and partly opened, on the south side; he advanced 
upon it for a short distance, and then suddenly changed his 
route and threw his whole force across the river, to the right 
bank. The Indians were completely deceived by this maneuver, 
and their plans defeated. 

On the 4th of November the army reached Pine Creek, and 
prepared to make the difficult crossing, which was successfully 
accomplished. The account of the engagement has been well 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 169 

described by McAffee, a gallant Kentuckian, and the following 
is his description, making some slight corrections from other 
authorities : 

" On the evening of November 5th the army encamped at the distance 
of nine or ten miles from the Prophet's town. The traces of reconnoitering 
parties were very often seen; but no Indians were discovered until the 
troops arrived within five or six miles of the town, on the 6th of November. 
The interpreters were then placed with the advance guard, to endeavor to 
open a communication with them. The Indians only continued to insult 
our people by their gestures. . . . 

" Being now arrived within a mile and a half of the town, and the situa- 
tion being favorable for an encampment, the governor determined to remain 
there and fortify his camp, until he could hear from the friendly chiefs 
whom he had dispatched from Fort Harrison on the day he had left it, for 
the purpose of making another attempt to prevent hostilities. Whilst he 
was engaged in tracing out the lines of encampment. Major Daviess and 
several other field-officers urged the propriety of immediately marching 
on the town. But the governor wished to hear something definite 
from the friendly Indians whom he had dispatched from Fort Harrison. 
He was determined not to advance with the troops until the precise 
situation of the town was known ; for, although it was his duty to fight 
when he came in contact with the enemy, it was also his duty to take 
care that they should not engage in an action when their valor would be 
useless. Major Daviess replied that, from the position of the dragoons, 
the openings made by the low grounds of the Wabash could be seen ; that 
he had advanced to the bank, and had a fair view of the cultivated 
fields and houses of the town. Upoia this information the governor said he 
would advance, provided he could get any proper person to go to the town 
with a flag. 

" Captain T. Dubois, of Vincennes, having offered his services, he was 
dispatched with an interpreter to the Prophet, desiring to know whether he 
would now accept the terms that had been so often proffered. The army 
was moved slowly after in order of battle. 

" In a few moments a messenger came from Captain Dubois informing 
the governor that the Indians were near him in considerable numbers, but 
that they would return no answer to the interpreter, although they were 



lyo THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

sufficiently near to hear what was said to them ; and that, upon his advanc- 
ing, they constantly endeavored to cut him off from the arnn^ 

"Governor Harrison could no longer hesitate to treat the Indians as 
enemies. He therefore recalled Captain Dubois, and moved forward with 
a determination to attack them. He had not proceeded far, however, be- 
fore he was met by three Indians, one of them the principal counselor 
of the Prophet. They were sent, they said, to know why the army was ad- 
vancing upon them ; that the Prophet wished, if possible, to avoid hostili- 
ties ; that he had sent a pacific message by the Miami and Pottawattamie 
chiefs ; and that these chiefs had unfortunately gone down on the south 
side of the Wabash. 

"A suspension of hostilities was accordingly agreed upon; and a meet- 
ing was to take place the next day between Harrison and the chiefs. 

" Upon marching a short distance further the army came in view of the 
town, which was seen at some distance up the river upon a commanding 
eminence. Major Davies had mistaken some scattering houses for the 
town itself. The ground below the town being unfavorable for an encamp- 
ment, the army marched on in the direction of the town. The dragoons 
being in front, soon became entangled in ground covered with brush and 
tops of fallen trees. A halt was ordered, and Major Davies directed to 
change position with Spencer's rifle corps, M'hich occupied the open fields 
adjacent to the river. 

"The Indians, seeing this maneuver, supposed they intended to 
attack the town, and immediately prepared for defense. The governor rode 
forward and assured them that nothing was further from his thoughts, that 
the ground below the town on the river was not fitted for an encampment, 
and that it was his intention to search for a better one above. He asked if 
there was any other water convenient besides the river, and was told that 
there was a creek two miles back to the north of the village. 

"A halt was ordered, and officers sent to examine the creek returned 
and reported that they had found every thing that could be desirable in 
an encampment. The army now marched to the place selected, and en- 
camped late in the evening, on a dry piece of ground. The order given 
to the army, in the event of a night attack, was for each corps to maintain 
its ground at all hazards till relieved. The dragoons were directed in such 
case to dismount, with their swords in hand, their pistols in their belts, 
g,nd wait for orders. 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 171 

" On the niglit of the 6th of November, the troops went to rest, as 
usual, with their clothes and accouterments on, and their arms by their 
sides. The officers were ordered to sleep in the same manner, and it was 
the governor's invariable practice to be ready to mount a horse at a mo- 
ment's warning. On the following morning he arose at a quarter to four, 
and sat by the fire conversing with the gentlemen of his family. At this 
moment the attack commenced. 

" The treacherous Indians had crept up so near the sentries as to hear 
them challenge when relieved. They intended to rush upon the sentries 
and kill them before they could fire ; but one discovered an Indian creep- 
ing in the grass, and fired. This was immediately followed by an Indian 
yell, and a desperate charge upon the left flank. Captain Barton's com- 
pany of regulars and Captain Guiger's company of mounted riflemen re- 
ceived the first onset. But the troops, who had lain on their arms, were 
immediately prepared to receive, and gallantly to resist, the furious sav- 
age assailants. The manner of the attack was calculated to terrify the 
men, but they maintained their ground with desperate valor. 

" Upon the first alarm the governor mounted his horse, and proceeded 
towards the point of attack, and finding the line much weakened there, he 
ordered two companies from the center of the rear line to march up and form 
across the angle in the rear of Barton's and Guiger's companies. In passing 
through the camp towards the left of the front line, he was informed by 
Major Davies that the Indians, concealed behind the trees near the line, 
were annoying the troops very severely in that quarter, and requested per- 
mission to dislodge them. In attempting this charge, Davies fell, mor- 
tally wounded, as also did Colonel Isaac White, of Indiana. 

"In the meantime the attack on the companies on the right became 
very severe. Captain Spencer was killed, with his lieutenants, and Cap- 
tain Warwick mortally wounded. The governor, in passing towards that 
flank, led Captain Robb's company to the aid of Captain Spencer, where 
they fought bravely, having seventeen men killed during the battle. While 
the governor was leading this company into action. Colonel Owen, his aid, 
was killed at his side. He was shot by one of the Indians who broke 
through the lines, and who doubtless mistook him for the governor, as he 
was mounted on a gray horse, the color of Harrison's, but in the sudden 
surprise, Harrison had mounted the first horse he could get, which was 
not his old gray. 



172 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

"Soon after Davies was wounded, Captain Snelling, by order of the 
governor, charged upon the same Indians, and dislodged them with con- 
siderable loss. The battle was now maintained on all sides with deter- 
mined courage. When the da}' dawned, the troops drove the enemj^ into 
a swamp, through which the cavalry could not pursue them. At the same 
time Cook's and lyieutenant Larrabee's companies, with the aid of the rifle- 
men and militia, charged the Indians, and put them to flight in that quar- 
ter, which terminated the battle. 

*' During the time of the contest, the Prophet kept himself secure on 
an adjacent eminence, singing a war-song. 

*' Tecumseh was not present at this engagement, not having yet re- 
turned from his trip to Georgia and Florida." 

The victory of Tippecanoe was the most decisive battle that 
had yet been fought between the Indians and the Western troops. 
The Indians were completely routed, and their losses were un- 
usually great, both in killed and wounded. The importance of 
this success is outlined in a message to Congress from President 
Madison : 

" While it is deeply to be lamented that so many valuable lives have 
been lost in the action which took place on the 9th ult., Congress will see 
with satisfaction the dauntless spirit and fortitude victoriously displayed 
by every description of troops engaged, as well as the collected firmness 
which distinguished their commander on an occasion requiring the utmost 
exertion of valor and discipline." 

The Legislatures of Indiana and Kentucky also passed like 
resolutions, declaring that " Governor William Henry Harrison 
behaved like a hero, a patriot, and a general, and for his cool, 
deliberate, skillful, and gallant conduct in the late battle of Tip- 
pecanoe, deserves the warmest thanks of the nation." One of 
the early writers of Ohio says : 

** The news from the army was received with joy and gratitude. Every 
town, village, and hamlet in the Valley of the Ohio joined in the universal 
demonstration of thanks to the troops and their commander. The country 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 173 

was wild with delight ; and women met the returning soldiers with the 
heart-felt welcome of mothers who believed that their children were now 
safe from the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. This victory restored 
confidence to the timid and composure to the fearful. The frontiersmen 
knew how different would have been the scene had the Prophet been the 
conqueror. Through the light of these fears it is easy to understand how, 
and why, Harrison was ever afterwards firmly placed in the hearts of the 
people of the North-west." 

The apparent calm which succeeded, the battle of Tippecanoe 
was not altogether a presage of peace, but rather the heavy 
silence which foretells a coming storm. The Indians were de- 
feated, but they were not conciliated; a crisis in the already 
strained relations existing between Great Britain and the United 
States was imminent. 

Tecumseh, apprised of the situation, renewed his efforts to 
bring about the confederation of the Nations, which had seemed 
almost hopeless immediately after the defeat of the Prophet at 
Tippecanoe. That disaster would have been impossible if the 
Great Chief had not been absent, for his sagacity equaled his 
courage. But in each of these long, forced expeditions his 
brother, when left in command, either through the rash persist- 
ence of vSome young, imprudent follower, or led by his over- 
weening vanity to believe himself a strategist superior to 
Tecumseh, never failed to precipitate the outbreak which Te- 
cumseh had strenuously labored to avoid until his allies were 
ready and a sure occasion presented itself to retake all the lands 
the tribes had lost, and regain the one boundary which they had 
never relinquished, the Ohio River. 

The United States declared war against Great Britain, June 
18, 181 2. The people of the North-west naturally looked to 
Harrison as their leader. It was an obvious fact that the first 

12 



174 THE PICTURESQUE OHIo. 

blow would be struck iu the West. And so public expectation 
was, in a measure, prepared for the losses that came through 
Hull's surrender; and, just as naturally, the people believed 
that Harrison could and would retrieve those losses, and prevent 
the wide-spread savage onslaught that was again threatened. 
The}^ had not forgotten that he was a prudent as well as a gal- 
lant soldier. The common danger swept awaj^ all regard for 
forms and precedents. Governor Scott, of Kentucky, gave Har- 
rison a commission as major-general in the Kentucky militia, 
and at the head of seven thousand Kentuckians he marched 
northward to regain what Hull had lost. 

For ten days Fort Wayne had been besieged by the Indians. 
At Harrison's approach they retired without waiting to hazard 
a battle. The Kentucky militia were hardly encamped when a 
United States officer arrived to take command of the army. He 
outranked the militia general Kentucky had created, and the 
camp was in a ferment of discontent, refusing to fight under any 
leader but the one their governor had appointed, and whom they 
had fought with and under from the time of Wayne's victor}- to 
the temporary truce given to the Indian question at Tippecanoe. 
Harrison himself persuaded them into acceptance of the new 
order of things, and they consented to serve under Winchester 
until their remonstrance could be sent in, and the War Depart- 
ment heard from. They had not long to wait before President 
Madison relieved General Winchester of the command, and ap- 
pointed Harrison as general-in-chief of the North-western army. 

The wisdom of this new appointment was soon seen in the 
improved disposition of the troops ; and it was still more conclu- 
sively proven by Winchester's ill-success in a separate command, 
and the terrible massacre of his men at the river Raisin. After 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 175 

sustaining a furious assault against overpowering numbers of 
the British and their Indian aUies, Winchester's Hue was broken 
and scattered, and the Indians began a horrible butchery. One 
hundred and twenty prisoners were slaughtered in one spot. 
Graves's division surrendered to Proctor on a pledge of security 
and the larger number were killed within sight of Proctor's 
head-quarters. 

General Harrison, hearing at the Rapids of the attack upon 
Winchester's camp, hastened to his relief with all the available 
force that was within his reach. They were met by the fugi- 
tives that had escaped, who told them of Winchester's total de- 
feat. Leaving a strong scouting party to bring in the fugitives, 
the troops returned to the Rapids. 

The force at the Rapids now amounted to less than nine hun- 
dred effective men. The commander fell back to Portage River, 
eighteen miles distant, and threw up intrenchments ; but being 
re-enforced by General Leftwich with the Virginia brigade and 
a battery, they again retook their former position at the Rapids, 
which was strongly fortified and called Camp Meigs. 

Every family in Kentuck}^ suffered some loss at the massacre 
of the Raisin. The fighting temper of her people was never 
more severely tried and never showed firmer endurance. When 
the news reached Frankfort the Legislature was in session, 
and the governor signed a bill that day "to raise three thousand 
volunteers to replace those lost in the inhuman butchery at the 
river Raisin." The mothers, wives, and sisters of the dead 
made the clothing and tents for the new recruits, that were so 
needed at Fort Meigs, which Harrison was holding against a 
force of six hundred British regulars, eight hundred Canadian 
militia, and eighteen hundred Indians led by Tecumseh in person. 



176 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO, 

It would be impossible, in such brief space, to tell the story of 
that heroic defense as it should be told. The British and Indians 
appeared before the fort on the 26th of April, and on the ist of 
May their batteries were in place, and the bombardment began. 
It lasted for eight days, and during that time the American loss 
was small. The third day the besiegers appeared to work slowly, 
and the garrison mounted the earth-works and cheered them on. 
On the night of the 3d the British erected a gun and mortar 
battery on the left bank of the river, within two hundred and 
fifty yards of the American lines. The Indians climbed into 
trees near the fort and poured a steady fire into the garrison. 
In this situation Harrison received from Proctor a summons to 
surrender, which was answered promptly by this refusal : 

"I believe I have a very correct idea of General Proctor's force; it is 
not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the contest, 
whatever shape he may be hereafter pleased to give it. Assure the general 
that he will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. 
Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him 
more Ifonor, and to give him larger claims upon the gratitude of his gov- 
ernment, than any capitulation could possibly do." 

At twelve o'clock the following night General Green Clay, 
with twelve hundred Kentuckians, reached the Maumee Rapids, 
and sent Captain Leslie Combs to communicate with General 
Harrison. When within a mile of the fort, Captain Combs was 
attacked by the Indians and obliged to retreat, after the loss of 
nearly all his men. Young William Oliver managed to crawl 
through the Indians, and reached the fort before midnight, with 
the news of General Clay's speedy arrival. 

Harrison now determined on a general attack, and sent or- 
ders to Clay to "land eight hundred men on the right bank, take 
the battery, and spike the guns." The remainder were ordered 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 77 

to "land on the left bank, and fight their way to the fort." 
General Clay descended the river as ordered, each officer taking 
position according to his rank. Colonel Dudley led the van, 
and landed on the right bank without difficulty. The violence 
of the current on the rapids prevented the orders being strictly 
obeyed. Clay landed on the left bank, with only fifty men, and 
fought his way into the fort. Two sorties were made from the 
garrison, one on the left, in aid of Colonel Boswell, by which 
the Canadian militia and Indians were defeated, and he enabled 
to reach the fort in safety; and one on the right, against the 
British batteries, which was also successful. 

Dudley's detachment "drove the British from their batteries 
and spiked the cannon ;" but although repeatedly recalled by their 
officers, the men pursued the enemy and were drawn into an am- 
buscade, where they were surrounded by British regulars and In- 
dians, and their retreat prevented. They were " huddled together 
in an unresisting crowd, and obliged to surrender." Fortunately 
for them, Tecumseh commanded. The Indians, with five hun- 
dred prisoners at their mercy, began a massacre. Tecumseh 
ordered it stopped, and killed a chief who refused to obey the 
order. Of the eight hundred, only one hundred and fifty escaped. 
On the 9th of May Proctor raised the siege, and hurried to 
Maiden. After that, Tecumseh was repeatedly seen near the fort, 
grave, stern, and splendidly mounted. "He seemed to be taking 
a very calm and deliberate survey of our works." One of the 
captives saved by Tecumseh thus described the chief: 

" This celebrated man was a noble, dignified personage. He wore an 
elegant broadsword, and was dressed as an Indian warrior. His face was 
finely proportioned, his nose inclined to the aquiline, and his eyes had none 
of the savage and ferocious triumph common to the other Indians. He 



17.8 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

regarded us with unmoved composure, and I thought a beam of mercy shone 
in his countenance. I never saw him again." 

The history, as continued by the captive, shows so clearly 
the nearness of the tragic and the comic, that we insert it. 

" On our march to the garrison the Indians began to strip us. One 
took my hat, another my hunting-shirt, a third my waistcoat, until I was 
left with only my undershirt and breeches. Having read, when a boy, 
Smith's narrative of his life among the Indians, my idea of their character 
was that they treated those best who appeared most fearless. Under that 
impression, as we marched into the garrison, I looked at the Indians we met 
with all the sternness of countenance I could command. I soon caught the 
eye of a stout warrior, painted a lively red. He gazed as fiercely at me as I 
did at him, until I came within reach, when, with a contemptuous grunt, he 
gave me a cut over the nose and cheek-bone with his wiping-stick, which 
made me abandon the notion acquired from Smith ; and I afterwards made 
as little display of hauteur and defiance as possible." 

General Harrison repaired the fort, and then, leaving Gen- 
eral Clay in command, left for Lower Sandusky, to organize 
the new levies. He had not been long absent before the garri- 
son understood the meaning of Tecumseh's " calm and delib- 
erate " inspection. July the 20th the enemy were discovered 
ascending the river. A party of ten men, out on a scout, were 
surprised by Indians in the woods, and onl}^ three escaped. 

The force which began the second siege of Fort Meigs com- 
prised five thousand men, under Proctor and Tecumseh (who 
now wore the uniform of a British general) ; the number of In- 
dians was greater than any ever before assembled under these 
commanders. Toward evening the British regulars were posted 
in the ravine below the fort, and the cavalry in the woods 
above, while the Indians were on the Sandusky road. Just 
before dark a roar of musketry indicated a severe battle. It was 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. 1 79 

so skillfull}^ shammed that the garrison flew to arms, and even 
the officers of all grades insisted on marching to the assistance 
of the re-enforcement they believed to be on the road. It was 
not without great difficulty that General Clay convinced them 
it was only a stratagem of the enemy. Fortunately a very 
heavy storm and pouring rain put an end to the battle. 

The next day the British regulars were gone, and the In- 
dians soon disappeared. A few days after, they attempted to 
carry Fort Stephenson by assault, and were ^lost gallantly re- 
pulsed by Major George Croghan, of whom General Harrison 
says in his official report: "It will not be among the least of 
General Proctor's mortifications that he has been baffled by 
a youth who has just passed his twenty-first year. He is, 
however, a hero worthy of his gallant uncle, General George 
Rogers Clark." 

From this time on, to the day of his brilliant victory of the 
"Thames," General Harrison scored a succession of triumphs. 
The British, soon after their second faifure at Fort Meigs, con- 
centrated all their force at Maiden. Many of the Indians, dis- 
pirited by numerous defeats, became discontented, and little 
parties were constantly leaving for the upper lakes, where *' the 
hunting season had begun." All that remained were the tribes 
who were under the direct command of Tecumseh. 

Thus far Harrison's campaign had been a purely defensive 
one ; but the time had come to change this Fabian policy and 
assume the aggressive. He could not permit the enemy to rest 
in security after their return from a campaign of invasion. He 
too was ready to '' carry the war into Africa." His purpose now 
was to capture Maiden and conquer Upper Canada. 

On the 20th of July, 1813, General Harrison was informed that 



l8o THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the naval armament, built under Perry's superintendence, was 
ready for action. On the 2d of August Perry took his fleet over 
the bar at the mouth of the harbor, and sailed for Sandusky, to 
get his orders from the commanding general. Harrison directed 
him to proceed at once to Maiden, and to bring the enemy to 
battle, as he (Harrison) believed the British commander was 
waiting to attack the fleet while it was engaged in the transpor- 
tation of the troops to Canada. 

On the 1 2th, Harrison, writing to Governor Shelby, says: 

" Our fleet has undoubtedly met that of the eneni}-. The day before 
yesterday a tremendous and incessant cannonade was heard in the direc- 
tion of Maiden ; it lasted two hours. I am all anxiety for the event." 

Before the messenger was out of sight with the letter, came 
one from Perry : 

*'U. S. Brig 'Niagara,' off the Western Sisters, I 
September lo, 1813—4 P- M. ' 

*' Dear General, — We have met the enemy, and they are ours — two 
ships, two brigs, one schooner, and a sloop. Yours, with great respect and 
esteem, Oi^ivER Hazard Perry. 

" General W. H. Harrison." 

On the 20th of September General Harrison embarked with 
the regular troops, under Generals McArthur and Cass, and the 
remainder of the army followed to Put-in-Bay. On the 26th he 
sailed with Commodore Perry, in the Ariel, to reconnoiter Mai- 
den. On the 27th the army embarked, and proceeded towards 
the Canada shore. They landed in high spirits ; but not an en- 
emy was to be seen. The inhabitants of Canada had fled from 
their houses, and hid their property. The enemy was over- 
taken on the 5th of October. 

" His right flank was covered by a swamp supposed to be impassable ; 
his left, drawn up by the river Thames, was supported by artillery ; while 



INDIAN CONFLICTS. l8l 

the Indians, two thousand strong, were posted on the right of the British 
regulars, and commanded by Tecuniseh. 

*' General Harrison drew up one division of his infantry in a double 
line, reaching from the river to the swamp, opposite Proctor's troops ; and 
the other division at right angles to the first, with its front extending 
along the swamp. The mounted Kentuckians, under Colonel Johnson, 
were placed in front of the infantry, General Harrison himself at the head 
of the front line. When Perry, who served as his aid-de-camp, remon- 
strated with him on this imprudence as a general, he replied : * It is neces- 
sary that a general should set the example.' Just then Colonel Wood 
reported that the infantry of the enemy was formed in open column. 
(A space of five feet between the ranks.) Harrison instantly changed his 
order of attack, and directed a charge of the mounted men, with orders to 
form in two charging columns, and on receiving the enemy's fire, to 
charge through their ranks, and act as circumstances seemed to require." 

The cavalry were thrown into a momentary confusion when 
the British infantry fired; the horses were badly frightened, 
which gave the British time to reload ; but when the column 
was fairly in motion, they rode down the enemy. Forming again 
in their rear, the cavalry charged through and through the 
flying troops, and the victory was virtually won. After the rout 
of the regulars, there was skirmishing on the left wing, when 
Harrison ordered Colonel Richard M. Johnson to cross the 
swamp and attack the Indians. Here for a short time the con- 
flict was obstinate and the defense determined ; but Tectimseh's 
death ended the battle, and, in fact, ended the war on the North- 
west frontier. 

It was the death of the Indian Confederation, and the crown- 
ing victory of the man the North-west delighted to honor ; the 
man "who never forgot a friend;" the "general who never lost 
a battle" — that was the proud boast of the Whigs in 1840. At 
this date his best claim to remembrance and honor is, " that he 



l82 



THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 



was just to the Indian in peace, and a fair, honorable, and mer- 
ciful enemy in a war that was stained by cruelty and hate." 

The region in which Tecumseh fought his last battles 
was also the scene of Pontiac's struggle. Both fought for 
admitted rights, which had been recognized in treaty after 
treaty ; fought for their lost lands and the River Boundary ; 
fought the same foes — the grim fighters of Kentucky, and 
those steadfast Saxons, descendants of the old Colonial Vir- 
ginians, who had stood by the King or Cromwell in the 
"brave days of old." Of all the martial figures that have 
gone down before this " fighting contingent," none showed 
greater prowess in the field, none were wiser in council, none 
more daringly rash in action, none more devoted to the union 
of a nation and the glory of a race than the great chieftain who 
fell beside the Thames — fighting for his people, and their right 

to the north shore of The Bright Shining River. "^ 
c. M. c. 

'•'Appendix A, No, V, 




"^^ 







UP CHEAT RIVER. 



PART SECOND. 



Afloat orp tt^e Deep, Shining f^iver. 



FROM PITTSBURG TO CAIRO 

ON 



€l)t Mjio. 



Afloat oi) bl)e Deep Sl)ir)ir)6 River, 



NOTWITHSTANDING the rapidly increasing threads 
of the immense railway systems which are constantly 
being woven into a chain-w^ork of steel and iron, up 
and down and across the river — from Pittsburgh to Cairo — 
its waters still bear bravely a noble fleet of Steamers. 

Each cit}^ on the Ohio has its system of regular 
** packets." And although the palmj^ days are gone, when 
one steamboat brought the rich gifts of fortune to owners 
and officers, there are yery certain and comforting gains 
yet to be gathered by the happy holders of " stock in a 
Packet Compan}'." 

In the early days of steamboating ventures, a village on the 
Ohio, or sometimes a neighborhood landing-place, " owned a 
boat," which, from the "pilot-house" to the "lower deck," was 
officered and occasionally manned b}^ the owners or their kins- 
men. Sturdy fellows and true were these " boatmen " — un- 
lettered, 3^et frequently the lucky owners of that more profitable 
learning which use doth breed. They were, in the main, un- 
taught of schools or books, and had but slight respect for a 
man who got all he knew from such uncertain sources. They 
were not gentlemen, in the circumscribed sense ; yet they were 
not at all iinmannered men, for they united to courage gentle- 
ness. Granted that they were sometimes compelled by stress 

187 



1 88 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

of circumstance, to knock down a refractory "deck-hand," or 
quiet with harsh voice a roystering "roustabout;" nevertheless, 
when that urgent duty was done, they were courteous, attentive, 
and gallant to every woman, young or old, who set foot upon 
the " gangway." Besides, they were the tenderest and most in- 
dulgent comrades of the small travelers, who, with that peculiar 
occult understanding of the child-mind, soon discovered that 
the vantage ground of baby-independence was found when a 
small autocrat set foot on the " hurricane deck," or outran the 
nurse in a race forward. 

But " other times, other manners." The old-fashioned 
steamboatmen — may Heaven keep them from avarice or purse- 
pride ! — have left the River, to put government bonds in 
Safe-Deposits. Yet, in view of the changed conditions, we 
feel ready to wager our last shilling that those hapless and 
miserable millionares are walking -sadly through the "marble 
halls " of an effete (or mushroom) aristocracy, sighing for the 
lost freedom of the " upper deck," and longing for the 
satisfying banquets of " Texas." 

The old-time pilots trained in the schools which required 
daring as well as doing, are still in their old places ; for their 
gains were less, and their skill was so wonderful, and their 
courage so constant that they could not be spared from the 
"pilot-house." 

The course of the Ohio is a very crooked one. From Pitts- 
burgh it takes a north-west direction for about twenty-five miles, 
then turns in gradual inflections west — south — west, following 
this general direction for nearly five hundred miles, when it 
bends more decidedly to the south-west for one hundred and 
sixty miles, then almost due west in easy serpentine curves t© 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 



189 




^^^ 



where it joins the Mississippi in a south-east course, latitude 
36° 46', eleven hundred miles below its source. The dangers 
and difhculties of this tortuous course are increased when the un- 
certain currents of its lower tributaries increase the volume of 
its waters; and the floods fill up or wash out the river-bed 
into new channels. In addition to these opposing forces in its 
lower lengths, the river has numerous islands — fifty within a 
distance of three hundred and ninety miles. Its banks are low 
where the hills recede from the water, leaving wide stretches of 
bottom-lands which are subject to heavy |^' ™- 
inundations when a late spring and fre- ^ 
quent rains bring the melting snows in 
swelling torrents down from the mount- 
ains. 

Yet let the wind " blow high or blow 
low," let the floods come, let the tricky river 
play at hide- 
and-seek with F^wr^ 
its channel, 
the skill of the 
pilot is rarely 
at fault. Mas- 
ter of the 
wheel, he calm- 
ly faces the sit- 
nation and 
holds his own. 

The Ohio 
has two regu- 
lar seasons of 



I90 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

high water, the spring floods var5dng in date from the last 
of February to May, and even so late as June ; and the autumn 
" rises," from October to earl}^ December. 

From Duquesne: Heights, at Pittsburgh, one has a com- 
manding view of the junction of the AUeghen}^ and the Mononga- 
hela. There are charming border stretches up the valleys of 
the formative affluents, and a wonderful breadth of effect where 
the Ohio sweeps its collected streams around Davis Island. If 
one sees this striking river-view in the clear and pure out- 
line, in the precise distinctness of dawn, or when the setting 
sun lights the reflective waters with resplendent color, it is 
fixed in the mind for all after days. To an imaginative person 
the scene is most attractive at night; for it seems "a faery 
vision," when the natural-gas torches are. aflame with the New 
World's exhibit of the "Holy Fires of Baku." 

The story of the Ohio has a certain mystic and poetic back- 
ground which gives it a striking and weird significance in the 
chronicles of the last two centuries, altogether different from the 
tame and commonplace annals of other gentle-flowing streams. 

The River has not onl}^ been the scene of dramatic incidents, 
but it has also been the cause of leading events. In the various 
conflicts for its possession, and in the successive tragedies enacted 
upon its banks, it was not merely 

" Part of the fateful setting of the play," 

but an actual Character in a series of occurrences to which it 
lends the investiture of dramatic unity. In the legends of the 
Western Indians, who fought for it with such persistence and 
rehnquished it with such bitterness, it ranks as a Personage, and 
in their traditional stories it bears a strangely grotesque likeness 
to the fabled river gods of classic Greece. 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. ■ i^j 

The streams running into the Ohio have rich bottom-lands, 
which are eas}^ of cuUure, but nothing could excel the fertility 
of the River's banks. Michaux, the eminent French naturalist, 
who went down the Ohio in 1803, says: 

" The soil is a true vegetable earth produced by the thick bed of leaves 
annually collected on the ground for centuries, and converted into mould by 
the prevalent humidity. Additions have been made to these successive 
beds of vegetable earth from the trunks of enormous trees destroyed by 
age. ... I have seen nothing to be compared to the vegetative power 
of these forests." 

He gives the measure of a plane-tree {Platanus occidentalis), 
the circumference of which, at five feet above the ground, was 
forty feet and four inches— about thirteen feet in.diameter. He 
adds: "General Washington measured this same tree fifty 
years ago." 

The forests that edge the southern affluents of the Ohio, and 
cover the overlooking heights, are grouped into colonies of soft 
and hard wood— of willow, poplar, sycamore, gum, maple, wal- 
nut, cherry, ash, hickory, and oak; while above all, and over all, 
tower unnumbered acres of pine and cedar. 

There are nowhere any wide, billowy prairies, rolling back- " 
ward from the Ohio, yet the narrowness of the landscape only 
adds a more striking and definite effect to the presentations 
offered in the long successive miles of alternating cities, villages, 
farms, and forests upon its banks. Its marginal stretches of 
uncultivated woodlands show a richness of coloring, a magnifi- 
cence of growth, a luxuriance of hanging vine and flowering 
shrub, that belong of right only to a virgin forest, and yet this 
unspoiled wilderness 'of shade that lends its most perfect charm 



192 • THE PICTURESQUE OHIO, 

to the river is, in the main, a voluntary growth of the last 
twenty years. 

Then, again, the river is unlike all others in its constant 
reproduction of certain characteristics. From Pittsburgh to 
Cairo its individuality is never lost. The graceful curves con- 
tinue their sentinel line of unending, yet ever-changing, linked 
and rounded hills, which stretch from the out-pushing spurs of 
the Allegheny Mountains, to where the Mississippi sweeps its 
solemn floods by the little city which is yet to be the Queen, as 
it is now the Gateway of Rivers — never losing the glittering 
continuity of its water-reflected chain. 

Situated at the head of this remarkable system of inland 
navigation, Pittsburgh reaches by river transportation eighteen 
States and two Territories, while it also stands as the center of 
railway systems that radiate to all points of the compass. 
Along the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, for some 
distance from Pittsburgh, shipment direct from the factories is 
daily practiced ; and the increasing demand for cheap transporta- 
tion, encouraging the rivalry between the natural water-ways 
and the railway-systems, will finally cause all the navigable 
affluents of the River to be made as available for transport as 
engineering skill can render them. 

The Ohio is a continuation of the Monongahela, and not 
of the Allegheny, which arrives at the conflux in an oblique 
direction, and is a swifter, as well as a clearer, stream than the 
larger southern affluent. From the very force and swiftness of 
its descent from the uplands, the Allegheny was always compara- 
tively free from obstructions to navigation, while the sluggish 
Monongahela has been opened by a system of locks, ending at 
Davis Island Dam, which effectually protects it from the ag- 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 193 

gressive incursions of the Alleghen3\ Nine bridges link Alle- 
gheny Cit}' and Pittsburgh, and five span the Monongahela. 

Fort Pitt, built by the troops, was finished about the ist of 
January, 1759. The French, from Venango, were preparing to 
undertake its reconquest. However, hearing that Sir William 
Johnson was marching against Fort Niagara, they were diverted 
from their undertaking. At this opportune moment General 
John Stanwix presents himself in the Hst of memorable histor- 
ical names. He was chief engineer in constructing the defens- 
ive works, of which he sa3's in a letter dated September 24th : 
" It will to latest posterity secure the British empire on the 
Ohio." Washington writes, in 1770, criticising its construction 
which was afterwards partially remedied. 

In 1760 the works were reported completed from the Alle- 
gheny to the Monongahela, and they cost the British Govern- 
ment ^60,000 sterling. Fifteen years later it was abandoned by 
order of the British Government, and now nothing of Fort Pitt 
remains, and the only memorial of the British possession of the 
Mississippi Valley is a single ''redoubt," built in 1764 by Colonel 
Bouquet, outside the fort, now used as a dwelling. It was prob- 
ably soon after the Battle of Bushy Run that Colonel Bouquet 
built the "redoubt" (1764), and in the same 3 ear Colonel John 
Campbell laid out that part of Pittsburgh bounded by Water, 
Second, Ferry, and Market Streets. From this time forward the 
fort was the scene of Indian treaties rather than battles, and the 
point of departure for various expeditions against the hostile 
tribes. The growth of the incipient town was slow, and the 
early allusions to it are far from being complimentary or pro- 
phetic of the greatness which it has attained ; indeed, its inhab- 
itants were spoken of in 1766 as living in ''some kind of a town 



194 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

without the fort ;" and in 1770 the log houses are said by Colonel 
Washington to be about twenty in number, and inhabited by In- 
dian traders. The ramparts of the fort were still standing in 
1796; but in the meantime another smaller fortification had been 
erected by Major Isaac Craig, called Fort I^a Fayette. 

The survey of the "Manor of Pittsburgh" was authorized 
on January 5, 1769, and the lands embraced within it were 
five thousand nine hundred and sixty-six acres. In the fall of 
1783, the two proprietors, J. Penn and J. Penn, Jr., determined 
to sell tracts to the "Manor," and in January, 1784, the first 
sale of lands within the boundaries of Pittsburgh was made to 
Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard. Lots were quickly sold, and 
the era of development began. In Niles' Register, the town is 
reported to have, in 1786, thirty-six log houses, and one stone 
and one frame house, making a population of three hundred 
and eighty, leaving, of course, the garrison of the fort out of 
consideration. In 1788, Dr. Hildreth says: "Pittsburgh then 
contained four hundred or five hundred inhabitants, several re- 
tail stores, and a single garrison of troops in old Fort Pitt. To 
our travelers (the pioneers of the multitude that afterwards 
passed through the gateway of the 'Beautiful River'), who 
had lately seen nothing but trees and rocks, with here and 
there a solitary hut, it seemed to be quite a large town. The 
houses were chiefl}^ built of logs, but now and then one had as- 
sumed the appearance of neatness and comfort." 

In 1796 the borough contained 1,395 people; of these, a few 
years later, Mr. Neville B. Craig could only enumerate one 
hundred and two houses standing in the Pittsburgh of 1 796. The 
city, incorporated March 18, 18 16, attained a population in 
1820 of 7,248, and from that time onward the decades of its 




LOOKIJNG UP Jil^K CRKKK. 
(CHARLESTON, W. VA.) 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 195 

growth have been as follows: In 1830, 12,568; in 1840, 21,115; 
in 1850, 46,616; in i860, 49,217; in 1870, 89,076; in 1880, 156,- 
381 ; in 1890, 238,473 ; and during this time the city of AUe- 
ghen}^ grew apace with Pittsburgh, separated from it by the 
Allegheny River. So in the brief interval — measuring time by 
histor}^ — of one hundred and thirty-two years, peace has suc- 
ceeded war. Now the battle of industry is being incessantly 
fought, and with greater success than the former ones, though 
filling the air with smoke and steam instead of powder. 

The Pittsburgh of to-day shows the immense advantages of 
its position in the leading iron and steel producing county 
of the United States, that of Allegheny. Well named the 
"Gateway of the West," its situation in respect of water 
interests, at the fork formed by the Allegheny and the Monon- 
gahela Rivers where they meet and flow into the Ohio, gives it 
a trade on that river rivaling in extent and importance the en- 
tire foreign commerce of the United States. So as to make the 
Allegheny River an extension of the Ohio for thirty miles, tw^o 
or three dams have been constructed, and the vast aggregation 
of manufactories and work-shops of Pittsburgh and adjacent 
country, really constitute an arsenal for the creation of w^ar ma- 
terial of all sorts second to no other point in the country. In 
every war fought by the United States, Pittsburgh has been a vital 
point of supply. Over four thousand cannons have been man- 
ufactured here for the use of the Government, many of them of 
the heaviest caliber known at the time. 

From the date of the construction of the " New Orleans," in 
181 1, until the present time, steamboat-building has been a lead- 
ing feature of its industries, and one steamer per week was 
turned out from the shops and boat-yards for a quarter of a 



196 THE PICTURESQUE O ///(). 

century, beginning with the year 1842. Also in most of that 
period, half the steam-fleet navigating Western waters was Pitts- 
burgh built, and the progress made in skill and science of con- 
struction was largely drawn upon when the demands of the war 
required craft of novel designs and purposes. Incidental thereto 
was the devising of steamers capable of towing coal-boats and 
barges. Experience tempted the river men, when once the efli- 
cacy of lashing boats together rigidly, and to the stern-wheeler's 
front, was established, to go on increasing the power of engines 
and steering apparatus, so that now Pittsburgh has steamers that 
can take twenty thousand tons of coal to market, a cargo greater 
than the "Great Eastern" ever handled, and, what is of far 
more importance, the expense of transportation is lower than 
by any other system of carrying in the world. 

The amount of coal shipped from here alone is enough to 
place Pittsburgh among the leading ports of the world. Her 
tonnage embraces at least four thousand one hundred barges, 
boats, and "flats," and their money value, added to the steam- 
fleet, makes a total investment of $10,000,000. 

The commencement of the maunfacture of invi in Western 
Pennsylvania dates back to the year 1790, and the pig-iron in- 
dustry of Pittsburgh has been highly successful in the last quar- 
ter of a centur3^ The center of production for the whole con- 
tinent now lies very probably within the limits of Pittsburgh. 
The iron and steel trades have grown rapidly since the intro- 
duction of natural gas. 

The following extracts from the Ohio Valley Manufacturer 
will show the importance of the Bessemer invention : " The 
casting of the great Bessemer steel gun for the United States 
government at the works of the Pittsburgh Steel Casting 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 197 

Company was a success. Sixteen thousand fiA^e hundred pounds 
of melted iron were used ; sixty men were employed in the 
operation one hour and thirty-seven minutes. The great im- 
portance of this experiment consists in the fact that the gun 
cast under this new method will cost $3,300, while the built-up 
gun, under the old method, would cost $22,000. 

These Bessemer steel plants will steadily increase in value 
to the full net profit to the country of $100,000,000 a year, 
not a dollar of which goes out of the country and not a 
dollar of which is lost. This $100,000,000 will be distributed 
along the lines of new railways, along the sources of coke and 
coal, with the transportation by rail and steamboat, and in the 
mines, and with their owners and laborers, and ten years hence 
the country will be worth $1,000,000,000 more for it." 

No large interest in which local capital is concerned has 
grown more rapidly within recent years than the manufacture 
of Connellsville coke. At the very gates of Pittsburgh and 
tributary to her commerce, are located the interesting and 
unique coke-making regions of Western Pennsylvania. The one 
product of this limited area is coke, a commercial fuel which is 
sought for by iron founders and smelters from Lake Cham- 
plain and New York on the east, to Salt Lake and Omaha 
on the west, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Coke 
is the product of slow combustion applied to the soft bitu- 
minous coal of the region. 

This coal is a well-defined portion of the "Pittsburgh coal- 
basin," the vein varying in thickness from 8 to 11 feet, and 
worked at all depths below the surface of the ground down to 
30C feet. The entire deposit of coal lies to the south-east of 
Pittsburgh, and varies in width from two to twelve miles, with 



1 98 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

a length of about fort}' miles. Mining engineers have explored 
every coal-bearing region of the country for a coal identical with 
Pittsburgh's Connellsville coking coal. Though its discovery 
would be worth untold millions, their efforts have been vain. 

Glass making is, perhaps, Pittsburgh's oldest industry, and has 
grown to be of prime importance in her general industrial ac- 
count. It was established here in 1795, among the first in the 
country, and was, in addition, remarkable in that it was the first 
also in the United States in the use of coal as fuel. There are 
now in operation in the district a large number of glass fac- 
tories of all classes, including several for the manufacture of 
plate-glass. Many millions of glass bottles and flasks are pro- 
duced annually, including a large proportion of the flint-glass 
prescription bottles used by the physicians of the country. 
Pittsburgh also supplies most of the lamp-chimneys used in the 
United States. 

The recent substitution of natural gas for coal in all the pro- 
cesses of glass-making has had a beneficial effect, which can not 
be estimated. Because of its purit}^ and freedom from sulphur, 
the glass produced with it is better in every way, perfectly free 
from flaw or speck, and adding to the attractiveness of the table 
by the peculiar brilliancy and beauty of the pressed ware. With 
natural gas the finest plate-glass in the world is produced, and that 
of Pittsburgh is rapidly superseding all others in our American 
markets. Formerly it was difficult to sell plate-glass of Amer- 
ican manufacture, and it w^as necessary to counterfeit the stamps 
of foreign manufacturers in order to procure a sale for it. The 
superiority of the home-made plate-glass is now acknowledged, 
thanks to natural gas, and the factories are unable to keep up 
wdth the demand, though running to their full capacity. 

The chief industries of Pittsburgh, glass, iron, and steel. 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 199 

speak for themselves. Skilled artisans can easily find employ- 
ment here for almost every specialty now turned out in the Old 
World, and the growing and wide-spread desire for fine goods 
all over the great West and the reviving South, are important 
elements in the calculation of those who consider the fact 
that these regions have for years been in the habit of looking to 
Pittsburgh for their glass-ware. Where the window-glass for a 
quarter of a miUion of houses is made ; where ninety millions 
of bottles and vials, twelve millions of tumblers, and forty mill- 
ions of lamp-chimneys are manufactured every year, there is also 
the place for the production of colored and cut glasses to rival 
Murano, Belgium, and Bohemia. 

Enough has been said to show the importance of Pittsburgh 
as the first in the list of cities and towns on the Ohio River in 
respect of wealth and progress as well as situation. The city 
itself, with its well-planned streets, is interesting from its never- 
ceasing life and bustle. Nothing could be more fascinating, even 
to an amateur, than a visit to its colossal steel- works, from the 
great " puddling " process to which the iron is exposed to when 
it lies finished the most beautiful steel for every possible pur- 
pose, all by the aid of natural gas ; the Bessemer Steel Works, 
with the wonderful invention of which so much has been said 
and written, to the glass-w^orks, where hours could be passed 
watching the dexterity only acquired by the habits of a life-time 
in turning the formless mass of "spun-glass" into articles of 
every- day use. 

About five and one-half miles below Pittsburgh is Davis 
Island, at the foot of which is located the first movable dam on 
the Ohio River. This work was commenced in August, 1878, 
and the system decided upon was the one that has been so suc- 
cessful on the Seine, Yonne, Marne, Meuse, and other French 



200 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

rivers, that known from its inventor as the Chanoine. Its com- 
pletion was celebrated in October, 1885. The total cost of the 
dam was less than $900,000. 

The river below Pittsburgh for the next ten miles is thickl}^ 
settled. Passing Glendale, Haysville, and Sewickley, through 
most luxurious vegetation. Economy Village, hedged in by the 
rounded contours of the hills, is reached. This is the third 
home of the Harmony Society, who emigrated to this country 
in 1803 from South Germany, followers of George Rapp, the 
founder of this communistic society. The members own twenty- 
five hundred acres of the surrounding country, of which every 
inch is cultivated. Mr. Charles Nordhoff gives an interesting 
description of this society in his " Communistic Societies of the 
United States." 

Another twenty miles bring us to the enterprising town of 
East Liverpool, Ohio, where several thousand men are engaged 
in the manufacture of porcelain and stone ware. " The veins 
of fire-clay on both sides of the river, between East Liverpool 
and Wheeling, are extensive and inexhaustible, and are proving 
a rich source of revenue to that section, and an important 
factor in the manufacturing interests of this valley. The busi- 
ness had a beginning in Hancock County, West Virginia, fifty- 
five years ago ; but it is only quite recently that its importance 
has attracted the attention of large capitalists, whose energy and 
business tact are rapidly pushing it to the front of American 
industries. Between East Liverpool and Wheeling there are a 
number of these works, most of them very extensive, and 
many new ones are in contemplation. All are crowded with 
orders, and ship goods to every section of the country." 

Sixty-seven miles below Pittburgh we reach Steubenville, 



AFL OA T ON THE RI I ER. 20 1 

Ohio, the capital of Jefferson County. This is a progressive 
and well-laid-out town, and wears its name in honor of Baron 
Steuben, of Revolutionar}^ fame, though the fort first named after 
him was destroj^ed by fire in 1790. The town, for a time, made 
but slow progress, but was incorporated a city in 1851. The Ohio 
being at all times navigable southward from Steubenville, it is in 
reality the head of navigation the whole year round, as during 
freshets Pittsburgh and other towns above are completely iso- 
lated. More tumblers are made here than in any other city on 
the globe, the largest works turning out upwards of 36,000 
tumblers per day. This city can also boast of the largest glass- 
chimney works in the world, while, as a place of residence, it 
presents many attractions. 

Leaving Steubenville the views all along the river are par- 
ticularly beautiful ; the distant hills make a fine background for 
the shining water as it curves in and out its green banks, and at 
a distance of about thirteen miles from Steubenville, near Tilton- 
ville. an Indian mound is plainly visible.* 

Thirty miles further down we reach the great bridge over 
which the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses from Ohio to 
Virginia, and at our left lies the beautiful city of Wheeling, 
in West Virginia. Wheeling is situated on an alluvial area 

'•• Of these mounds Ohio alone contains 11,500, and-with the earth-works, called inclosures, 
there are 13,000. Nothing positive is known as to the race by which these mounds were 
built, called Mound-builders, from the nature of the traces they left behind them. Pre- 
historic they certainly were, whether in the sense of antedating the discoven,- of America 
or not, remains a question that seems to admit of much discussion. These mounds are di- 
vided by different archaeologists into several classes, chief among which are the military and 
the sacred. One of the most remarkable of these earth-works is Fort Ancient, on the east 
bank of the Little Miami River, 33 miles north-east of Cincinnati, and, in fact, they abound 
in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys ; for, with no other proof than the size and number of the 
mounds, the fact is established that the Mound-builders were, to a certain extent, tillers of 
the soil, and selected sites near the rivers, where not only was communication assured, but 
vegetation abounded. 



202 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

or isthmus on the east side of the Ohio River, about 96 
miles below Pittsburgh, and lies on both sides of Wheeling 
Creek, which empties into the Ohio River. .The geographical 
position of the city combines the agricultural advantages of an 
inland town with all the sources of prosperity arising from 
navigable water-courses and great national thoroughfares. It is 
surrounded by bold and precipitous hills, containing almost in- 
exhaustible seams of bituminous coal, while its location on a 
high elevation of ground renders it secure from inundations and 
ravages of high water. It nestles like a gem in its setting right 
amid these foot-hills of the Appalachian range, the most famous 
and richly-endowed coal-producing mountain range in the world. 
Every one of these foot-hills or spurs in the neighborhood of 
Wheeling is rich in coal deposits. In fact, every county in West 
Virginia, between the Ohio River and the Maryland and Virginia 
lines, is underlaid with coal in quantities and in all desirable va- 
rieties. Wheeling is, in more than one sense, the metropolitan 
center from which the agencies which nourish and strengthen 
the balance of the State radiate. She has geographical advan- 
tages and facilities which render it possible for her to become 
one of the notably progressive centers of the country. 

Through an existence of over a century, first as an isolated 
settlement, far beyond the frontier ; then as a fort, for the pos- 
session of which was fought the last battle of the Revolution ; 
later a trading village, whose position on the Ohio River gave 
her prominence and prosperity ; a town on the great National 
Road ; after that ceased to be the great thoroughfare between the 
East and the West, a thriving city at the western terminus of 
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; and since a growing community, 
with increased facilities of communication with the world at 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 203 

large, — in this varied existence as village, town, and city, 
Wheeling has steadily held her own in the contest for the sur- 
vival of the fittest. 

The construction of the National Road gave to her an impor- 
tance she had not possessed before. Her position as the point of 
tranfers for the people of the whole Western country, from the 
palatial steamers which plied the Ohio, to the swinging stages 
which climbed and descended the slopes of the Alleghenies, 
gave her advantages among towns of the country envied by 
many a larger sister. The laying of the Baltimore & Ohio 
track to the river assured the continuance and increase of those 
advantages, and the city gradually changed from a trading and 
shipping post to a considerable manufacturing and mercantile 
communit3^ and the little town on the bluff spread out into a 
good city, with neighboring towns above and below and across 
the river. Gradually she assumed the position of the metrop- 
olis of Western Virginia ; and when from the throes of civil 
war a new State was born, she was its only city, and she has 
remained among the increasing list of thriving towns of the 
Mountain State in manufacturing and commercial interests as 
well as population, far in advance of all her rivals. She has seen 
cities grow up in her suburbs rivaling in importance the Wheel- 
ing of less than a generation ago ; and when her citizens look 
back over the record of enterprise and progress, increasing 
with the years, no era stands distinct, in beginning or ending, 
from the years which preceded or those which followed; for 
her growth has been so steady and so constant as to be almost 
im-perceptible. 

Her lanterns, her calico, her furniture, are known and used 
far and wide. Her iron and steel is fashioned into thousands of 

14 



204 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

shapes, thousands of miles away. Her queensware from her 
pottery has won for the city new laurels as a manufacturing 
center. Her leather, her calico, her iron, and glass and china 
ware, have an enviable name in all parts of the country. 

Beyond " McCulloch's leap," and beautifully situated in a 
natural amphitheater of rounded hills, is the Mount de Chantal, 
for more than forty years celebrated as a boarding-school, and 
presided over by the Sisters of the Visitation. This order was 
founded three hundred years ago in France, by the Baroness 
Jane de Chantal, grandmother of Madame de Sevigne. 

The scenery below Wheeling is thoroughly typical of the 
Ohio River; the rolling country, the rich land, bordered with 
the tender green of the river willows, hanging protectingly over 
the banks, while at Moundsville, a distance of ten and one-half 
miles, another Indian mound, planted here and there with trees, 
overlooks the village. Further down beautiful and richly 
cultivated islands divide the river, and one is everywhere passing 
little villages. 

Marietta, Ohio, is the next town of any importance. It 
has fine views of the Ohio and Muskingum Valleys. Situated 
at the junction of the Muskingum wath the Ohio River, and 
centrally in as valuable deposits of sandstone as can be found 
in the country, and in one of the best agricultural counties in 
the State, that of Washington, Marietta has many advantages, 
not the least of which are those that make it a shipping port.* 



♦Marietta has, as an early and useful- settlement, a certain historic importance ; but in 
two points she overestimates her claims. Pittsburgh was a fort in the middle of the century, 
and a thriving village when the expedition to Marietta was planned. Geographically and 
historically, Pittsburgh was, and is, the Gateway of the West (which Marietta claims to be 
in her centennial issue). Marietta was settled by the New England successors to the title 
of Virginia Ohio Land Company, organized by the Lees and Washingtons. The previous 
battles of the Virginians and the Scotch-Irish Pennsylvanians, made peace secure, and thus 
was inaugurated the advent of what an early writer calls the "long-vested, stiff-collared, 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 205 

Twelve miles below Marietta lies the city of Parkersburg, 
first called " The Point," the second city in size in West 
Virginia, and the county-seat of Wood, pleasantly situated 
on the southern bank of the Ohio, at and above the mouth 
of the lyittle Kanawha River. Here, at a cost of between 
two and three millions of dollars, an iron bridge has been 
built across the Ohio River, resting upon solid piers of stone 
a hundred feet above the bed of the stream, giving access 
to the State of Ohio, and from which a fine view can be ob- 
tained of Parkersburg, the Ohio Valley, the beautiful Island of 
Blennerhassett, and the heights of Fort Boreman. In December, 
1800, the survey of the town of Parkersburg was completed, the 
streets of which are made to intersect each other at right angles, 
running from the Ohio River in a south-easterly direction, and 
from the Little Kanawha north-east. This river is a stream of 
considerable importance, navigable for fully twenty-eight miles, 
and now being surveyed so as to be navigable for sixty miles, 
and, with its lumber, makes the principal trade of Parkersburg, 
which is pre-eminently a manufacturing city. 

The Island of Blennerhassett, situated in a heavy bend in 
the Ohio River to the west, a mile below the mouth of the 
Little Kanawha, and in full view of the city of Parkersburg, 
presents a most attractive appearance. The island now contains 



broadcloth-clothed " New Englander. The first white man whose foot ever touched the soil- 
of the Ohio Vallev was La Salle, who reached Louisville in 1667, and would have proceeded 
to the Mississippi] except for the desertion of his men. He was encamped on the " Knobs " 
at New Albany, and made his way back by land to Lake Erie with the few Indians, who 
were all that remained of his original large following. Thus Louisville has a certam and 
established priority of date over every settlement south-west of Pittsburgh, as the town was 
laid cut in 1777 by Thomas Bullitt ; but the first settlement on the island at the mouth of 
" Bear Grass Creek," which, from its position, was much more secure from Indian raids, was 
made in 1773. This little fort was the center where the fighting contingents were collected 
whenever Indians were to be repulsed, or a raid of reprisal was to be made into their coun- 
try, and these dates certainly outrank Marietta. 



2o6 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

about two hundred acres of the best bottom-land of the Ohio 
River, and one of the best farms in this country ; it is in a good 
state of cultivation, and possesses orchards of fine fruits, and, 
from its natural location and advantages, is most valuable. 
Ravenswood, West Virginia, is passed near the " Big Bend " of 
the river, and Portland, Ohio ; New Haven, West Virginia ; and 
Mason City, and, opposite, Pomeroy, Ohio, with its great salt- 
works, sixty-three miles below Parkersburg; then the little 
towns of Middleport and Sheffield. Another sixteen miles, 
and the Big Kanawha River empties into the Ohio at Point 
Pleasant, West Virginia, the scene of a memorable Indian battle 
in 1774. 

Gallipolis, laid out by French settlers in 1791 ; Chambers- 
burgh and Bladensburgh, on the right bank of the Ohio ; Apple 
Grove and Mercerville, on the left ; Millersport, Haskelville, 
Ohio, and Proctorville, and, opposite, Guyandotte, West Virginia, 
at the mouth of the Guyandotte River ; and these, with Brad- 
ricksville and Frampton, Ohio, bring us to Huntington, West 
Virginia, a new town below the mouth of the Guyandotte 
River. Catlettsburg, eight miles below Huntington, is at the 
mouth of the Big Sandy River, which forms the Kentucky 
State line ; and in Kentucky, at a distance of three miles, is the 
pretty little town of Ashland. The site possesses great natural 
advantages, being upon a broad plateau, sufficiently undulating to 
afford good natural drainage, and having as its entire front the 
finest deep-water harbor above Cincinnati. The survey of the 
town provided beautiful streets and avenues, those at right angles 
from the river being eighty feet wide, and those parallel to it 
being one hundred feet in width. It was named for the home 
of Henry Clay. 



AFLOAT OX THE RIVER. 207 

Neai'h' opposite Ashland, 011 the Ohio side of the river, 
is the ver}' progressive town of Ironton. The town was 
founded by the Lawrence County iron-masters of forty years 
ago, as a manufacturing and shipping point for their product. 
The iron industry of the county, starting with the building of 
Union Furnace in 1826, had expanded till, in 1848, some nine 
charcoal-furnaces were shipping from Hanging Rock — a village 
lying at the foot of bold, sandstone escarpments, three miles be- 
low^ the present site of Ironton — a grade of iron of such admit- 
ted superiority in Western markets, as to give its name, the 
name of the village, to the entire region. In 1848 and 1849 the 
iron masters wisely organized two companies, the Iron Railroad 
Compan}-, to build a line tapping the furnace region, the Ohio 
Iron and Coal Company, to establish a town at the railroad's 
river terminus. The real estate company bought three hundred 
and twenty-four acres, lying near the center of the broad bot- 
tom, which stretched, some seven miles long, from Hanging 
Rock to opposite where Ashland, Kentucky, now^ lies, and on it 
in June, 1849, laid out the town of Ironton, which was incor- 
porated January, 1851, and the same year became the seat of 
lyawrence, now the most populous count}^ on the Ohio River 
from the Miami to the Muskingum. 

The scenery of the Ohio River is here filled with striking 
characteristics. The hills are more rugged, and, passing the bold 
ledge called Hanging Rock, wilder than at any other point, 
while the smoke and flame from a hundred chinine5^s announce 
the center of a great manufacturing region, Burke's Point, 
.Wheelersburg, and Scioto Village, we reach Portsmouth, Ohio, 
twenty-eight miles below Ironton, one of the most interesting 
towns on the river, on account of its age, lying at the mouth of 



2o8 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the Scioto River. Two miles below Portsmouth it is believed 
that a French fort existed as early as 1740. It is probably true 
that four families came down the Ohio from the Redstone settle- 
ment in 1785, and settled where Portsmouth now stands, but were 
driven away by the Indians. That Alexandria was built, flour- 
ished, and afterwards died, is a well-known historical fact. The 
land on which Portsmouth now stands was partly cleared, and a 
plat made for a town in 1803, but a new plat was made in 1805, 
and with that the town really began. The original proprietor 
of the patent received from government, and signed by John 
Adams, President, was Colonel Thomas Parker. This patent 
bears date of February, 1798, and the following year the town 
was laid out. It was supposed to be an excellent location in the 
large, fertile valley of the Scioto, which was selected for its agri- 
cultural advantages, but the Ohio and its great floods were then 
an unknown quantity, and it afterwards proved that the town 
plat was only fifty feet above low-water mark, so that an over- 
flow was an annual certainty. Alexandria w^as of some use for 
the short time of its existence to persons going to Maysville and 
Cincinnati ; so some few good buildings were erected, and one or 
two of these two-story stone houses were in existence long after 
the village had been abandoned. 

Henry Massie, whose brother laid out the town of Chillicothe, 
purchased in 1802 several sections of lands on the east side of 
the Scioto, and in 1803 made the plat of Portsmouth, named for 
Portsmouth, Virginia, the home of the Massies in Colonial days. 
To get his new town settled he made several liberal offers to the 
Alexandrians, who, up to this time, had preferred the west bank, 
as the east bank was but a dreary-looking forest. A sudden 
flood of the Ohio convinced them that Alexandria was not a safe 



AFLOAT ON THE klVER. 209 

place of residence, atid most of the families immediately crossed 
the river. 

The death of the old town decided the prosperity of the 
new. Log cabins and frame dwellings were scattered over the 
plat, a substantial hewed log house afterwards weatherboarded, 
and most of the business houses were built on Front Street, 
then called Ohio Street ; and a few of these old buildings still 
remain. 

The settlers were principally from Virginia, West Virginia, 
and New Jersey, and in 18 10 the population was between 300 
and 400. The first court-house was finished in 18 16. "The 
first steamboat was builded through a privilege given to Aaron 
Fuller by the town council to construct a steamboat on the 
commons in front of the town, in 1829." 

In this era flourished a literary institution called the Frank- 
lin Institute, which gave giant minds a chance to expand, and in- 
spired the weaker ones. The first of the young Ciceros, in his 
speech before this assembly, in eulogizing the merits of Wash- 
ington, said : " He fought, bled, and died for his country, and 
then retired to private life." (From the History of the Lower 
Scioto Valley, by S. W. Cole.) 

Passing a number of comparatively small villages, we reach 
Ma5^sville, Kentucky, fifty-two miles below Portsmouth, and one 
of the prosperous river towns, settled about the same time as 
Cincinnati. Then the river banks become more thickly settled, 
and the towns of Ripley, Levanna, Dover, Higginsport, Augusta, 
Chilo, Neville, Point Pleasant, California, Palestine, and Co- 
lumbia, are passed in rapid succession, while the hills, thickly 
studded with suburban homes, indicate the proximity of the 
Queen City, the Metropolis of the Ohio Valley. 



2IO THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. I 

Cincinnati, to which now is universally acceded the title 
of "Queen City of the West," was first known as Lo- 
santiville — the village opposite the mouth — ly-os-anti-ville, more 
really the mouth opposite the village ; so named on account of 
the lyicking River, on the Kentucky side, of which the banks 
were a favorite hunting resort. Traces of occupation by an un- 
known race were found by the early settlers, notably a tablet on 
this spot — probably the grave of a mound-builder ; but the first 
positive date recorded is that of 1780, when " Colonel George 
Rogers Clark, with an army of about one thousand men, crossed 
the Ohio at the mouth of the lyicking, and erected two block- 
houses, on the ist day of August, upon the ground now occupied 
by Cincinnati." These served as store-houses, and in 1785 a 
short military settlement occurred. In 1779 Captain Robert 
Patterson, one of the most daring and gallant of the early fron- 
tiersmen, had built a solitary block-house where now is the 
center of Lexington, Kentucky; and in the winter of 1788-89, 
with Denman and Israel Ludlow, he laid out the town of Losan- 
tiville. In September of the same year, at the instigation of the 
officer in command, the site of Fort Washington was changed 
from North Bend to Losantiville, which, after St. Clair's defeat, 
became the head-quarters of the North-western Territory. By 
the close of 1789, eleven families and twenty-four unmarried 
men were residents of the village; and in 1790, "Cincinnati 
began to live, and Losantiville was no more." In 1800 the village 
was composed of a few frame and log houses, with a population 
of seven hundred and fifty inhabitants ; and in 1 808 the fort was 
condemned and ordered to be sold. 

The Centinel of the North-ivestern Territory was the first 
newspaper published north of the Ohio River, in 1793, and 



AFL OA T ON THE Rl I 'ER. 2 1 1 

already in early days Cincinnati stood pre-eminent as the book 
market of the West, the distributing point for the entire Valley 
of the Mississippi. The first book-store in the city was opened 
in 1 819. 

In 181 2 Fulton introduced steamboats on the Ohio, and in 
1 8 16 the first steamboat was built in Cincinnati. With the 
growth of steamboat-building Cincinnati at once became the 
center of a vast commerce, and traded with the most distant 
parts of the Mississippi Valley. The number of steamboats built 
in Cincinnati amounted to one-fifth of the whole number built 
in the United States, and she became the point of receipt and dis- 
tribution of the immense surplus products of a great region. To 
this large steamboat commerce is also due the fact that Cincinnati 
had for many years a population of prosperous river-men, grow- 
ing rich, year by year, from the enormous river-traffic, and, be- 
ginning with positions on the boats phdng to and fro on the 
Ohio, retired middle-aged men, possessed of handsome fortunes. 

From "an early visit to Cincinnati," we learn that in 1823 
" there were no houses where Newport and Covington now are, 
and the city hardly reached above Second Street, parallel with 
the Ohio River. The principal buildings were on the street 
perpendicular to the upper river wharf, on the right of which 
was the hotel. There were few brick buildings, and on Second 
and Third Streets the houses were few and scattering, with small 
yards in front. 

The plan of Cincinnati is similar to that of Philadelphia, and 
the streets are named in nearly the same way. It is well built, 
and said to be the most compact city in the United States. Its 
situation, on a natural plateau surrounded by an amphitheater 
of hills three hundred feet in height, with Covington and New- 



212 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

port, separated by the Licking River, on its southern half, and 
the resources of the entire Ohio River at its feet, is an enviable 
as well as a unique one. Nowhere are there such facilities for 
business, or such sites for handsome residences. 

That Cincinnati is in great part a home for a large class of 
German-speaking people, is evident from the appellation of 
" Over the Rhine," belonging to that portion of the city sepa- 
rated from the main part by the Miami Canal, and seemingly a 
piece of the '' Vaterland" set down in the midst of one of our 
most progressive American cities. Here, surrounded by a 
home-loving people, is the great Music Hall, justly the pride of 
the Queen City, with the handsome Exposition buildings, due 
also in a degree to these German citizens, whose love for music 
demanded a proper hall in which to hold their " Sangerfest." 
Over eight thousand people fill this great auditorium every two 
years, to hear the best orchestral and vocal music in the world, 
and in every part of the United States the Cincinnati Musical 
Festivals are treats to look forward to and be proud of. In 
this, the centennial year of the Ohio Valley, the city will be 
crowded to its utmost capacity. 

To make the plan of Cincinnati definite, to turn -back for a 
moment that we may present it as it is to eyes that have never 
seen it, is a difficult problem to work out in a necessarily lim- 
ited space, where words are used to construct a sketch which 
appeals to the mind's vision. Yet to leave this unattempted 
would be unjust to the Cincinnati which crowns the chain of 
hills encircling the city proper; for in these linked heights we 
find a singularly perfect exhibit of the peculiar characteristics 
which define and illustrate the RivER. 

From where Mt. Adams juts out into the broken cliffs which 



AFL OA T ON THE RI VER. 2 1 3 

edge the river and overlook the crescent-shaped valley and 
the distant hills inclosing the twin cities that lie along the curv- 
ing edge of the Kentucky shore, and from where its rugged 
flanks push backward into the chain, a continuous succession of 
swelling ridges environ the Cincinnati of trade, which is half 
hidden in the dense smoke that shrouds its countless indus- 
tries. This sweep of the circling heights goes backward and 
onward, broken only by the deep and narrow valley of Deer 
Creek, and the wider valley of Mill Creek, which divides the 
steeps of Clifton from the bold escarpment of Price Hill, where 
the chain once more touches the river. This environment of 
hills for man}^ 3'ears formed a barrier to the city's growth on 
the eastern, northern, and western sides. Villages and farm- 
houses found place here and there upon the summits, and vine- 
yards covered the slopes that were not too steep to till. As soon 
as the advantages of their higher situation began to be appreciated, 
their growth increased with the multiplied and improved modes 
of travel to and from the city. The ravines which formed di- 
viding lines have been filled up or bridged over, and the village 
names now serve to denote different localities of a breezy hill- 
top city of homes. To-day the inclined-planes and cable and 
electric railways carry many thousands of people up the heights, 
and the quondam rural villages are now the crown-jewels of the 
Queen City. 

Beginning with the first point in the eastern chain of hills 
just sketched in outline, we return to Mt. Adams. This was 
the site of the first Cincinnati Observatory, and here, in 1843, 
the corner-stone of that building was laid by ex-President John 
Quincy Adams. The observatory was managed by the Cincinnati 
Astronomical Society until 1872, when it became a department 



214 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

of the Cincinnati University, and was removed to its new build- 
ing on Mt. Lookout. 

From Mt. Adams, through Eden .Park, where are the Art 
Museum and Art School buildings, substantially built of stone, 
we come to the residence portion of Walnut Hills. The Rev. 
James Kemper, a Presbyterian minister, who, in 1791, descended 
the river in a flat-boat, settled on the bold uplands north-east of 
the village of Cincinnati, and built a strong block-house, which 
was the only secure parsonage at that date. 

The quaint old residence, remodeled from the original struc- 
ture, still stands, but the lane, which once led down the hill, is 
now a well-paved street, lined with comfortable homes, and the 
Kemper lands are covered with a populous part of the suburban 
city, which still recalls, in name, its groves of native growth. 

Walnut Hills is called the "Suburb of Churches," from 
the number and elegance of these edifices. This locality is the 
site of well-known rural homes, set in beautiful parks, where 
the changing vistas give charming river views. 

AvONDALE, which adjoins Clifton and Walnut Hills, was 
until recently a model village, with its town hall and village 
school, its country roads and its shady lanes. Now the cable, 
electric, and steam railways seem to bring it much nearer the 
city ; new streets are opening in all directions, and the work 
of building is busily going on. 

Mt. Auburn, formerly called Keys's Hill, was early popular 
as a place of residence, and is now more closely built up than 
the other hill-top suburbs. The Cincinnati Orphan Asylum and 
the German Protestant Orphan Asylum are both situated here, 
and, like Walnut Hills and Avondale, Mt. Auburn boasts the pres- 
ence of excellent educational institutions, both public and private. 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 215 

Clifton surpasses all the other suburbs in the number and 
elegance of its residences and the beauty of its streets. Like 
Avondale, it is a separate incorporated village, and its citizens 
and municipality take pride in working for its welfare and im- 
provement. No shops or factories are found within its limits, 
and the twenty miles of tree-lined avenues which wend their 
way between the spacious private estates, unmarred by fence or 
boundary- wall, unite to form a vast cultivated park. Clifton 
has a handsome town hall and public-school building, known 
as " Resor Academy" in front of which stands the beautiful 
fountain, the recent gift of Mr. Henry Probasco. 

Burnet Woods Park, the old beech-forest, whose natural 
beauty has not been marred by artificial means, stands on the 
southern boundary of Clifton. Near it is the Zoological Garden, 
which contains over sixty acres of beautiful park, substantial 
buildings, and a fine collection of four-footed wild animals, birds, 
and reptiles, which is well worth seeing. 

To the west of the city, and across Mill Creek, whose valley 
separates it from the northern hills, another ridge rises precipi- 
tously to the height of four hundred feet above the river-bed. 
Its summit, which is known as Price Hill, is reached by an in- 
clined-plane railway and by the winding Warsaw pike. Here 
again are magnificent views of the city, river, and surrounding 
country. Price Hill has many handsome residences, comfort- 
able homes, and numerous churches and schools. 

On the Kentucky shore, opposite Price Hill, the highlands 
that inclose Covington and Newport fall in broken hill-ter- 
races to the river; for at Ludlow is the south-east end of the 
encircling ridge, which crosses the Licking and sweeps around 
the wide extent of lowlands upon which the river plats of the 



2l6 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

Kentucky towns were originally made. But the twin cities 
have broken their old boundaries. Houses are scattered in 
neighborly groups along the choice spots of the beautiful Cov- 
ington highlands, and Newport has its secluded mansions that 
look down upon the Ohio River. 

Above and below the cities the river on each side is lined with 
growing colonies of prosperous village suburbs, into which street 
railways are venturing, and thus the city links are being welded. 

Several bridges cross the Ohio here. The suspension bridge, 
connecting Cincinnati with Covington, is a magnificent struc- 
ture, erected at a cost of $1,800,000, and was opened in 1867. 

As a work of art the bronze fountain, which has given its 
name to the square in the center of Cincinnati, stands among 
the finest in the United States, and was presented to the people 
in 1 87 1 by Mr. Henry Probasco, as a memorial of his brother-in- 
law, the late Mr. Tyler Davidson. The bronze work is cast from 
cannon purchased of the Danish government; but the figures 
are in themselves a study, symbolizing the uses and blessings of 
water, by August von Kreling, the son-in-law of Kaulbach, and 
were carefully carried out in every detail by Herr von Miiller, 
of Munich, Bavaria. 

The Public Library, a handsome building on Vine Street, 
between Sixth and Seventh Streets, contains about seventy-two 
thousand volumes, and has been open to the public since 
1874. The new Chamber of Commerce building, at Fourth and 
Vine Streets, is the work of the well-known architect, Rich- 
ardson, and promises to take the first place among the city's 
handsome buildings, though the post-office and government 
offices occupy a very imposing one on Fountain Square, and 
most of the club-houses show remarkable architectural taste. 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 217 

It is impossible in this short summary of Cincinnati to do 
justice to the city, its well-kept streets and watchful municipal 
government, and its progress in every particular. Its street-car 
system and fire department can not be excelled in any city in 
the United States ; it contains many handsome churches, and is 
foremost in public charities; its educational facilities, in all 
branches of art and science, are unlimited. 

In all mention of Cincinnati, its suburbs and the Kentucky 
cities of Covington and Newport are included, for though both 
of these cities across the river have important iron interests, 
and together about seventy thousand inhabitants, yet it is easy to 
see that the prosperity of the Queen City is theirs also, and 
that their fortunes are indissolubly connected. 

A peculiarity of the Kentucky shore below Cincinnati is the 
curious composite rock formation, apparently washed here and 
there into hollow^s by the water. The Big Miami River empties 
into the Ohio nineteen miles below Cincinnati, between the 
States of Indiana and Ohio, and a short distance from the city of 
Lawrenceburg, Indiana, situated on what is known as the 
high bottom-lands, and an important manufacturing center. 
Lawrenceburg is a well-built town, supplied with a levee suffi- 
cient to preserve it from the highest floods. 

A little farther down we pass Aurora, a growing city. Then 
several small ports, including CarroUton, Kentucky, one of the 
oldest settlements; Preston, Milton; and, on the right bank, 
^ladison, Indiana, beautifully situated in the midst of a fertile 
valley. Bethlehem, Westport, Herculaneum, and Utica are 
passed in turn before reaching the Falls of the Ohio and the 
beautiful city stretching along the shore. The unusual im- 
portance of a location at the " Falls of the Ohio " was seized 

15 



2i8 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

upon with a prophetic instinct by a small company of adven- 
turous volunteers, who landed at the mouth of Bear Grass Creek 
on July 8, 1773, and these few men were the first elements of 
population, where to-day there is a great and wealthy city. 
Captain Bullitt, the head of this small company, laid out a town 
site, and the year following built a house ; but it was not until 
three years later that the State of Kentucky was created a sov- 
ereign State. Gratitude to the French king, Louis XVI, for 
declaring against England in the War of the Revolution, sug- 
gested the name of IvOuisville, and there were probably nearly 
1,000 inhabitants here and in the immediate vicinity in 1800. 
When the town was founded, the enormous value of a canal around 
the Falls had been considered ; for it is certain that a map of the 
town, drawn in 1793, presented the projected canal virtually as it 
was built thirty-seven years later. If a history of the people of 
lyouisville were written, it would comprise three distinct periods. 
The first would be the pioneer period ; the second the building 
of the canal; and the third period ''would comprise that of the 
organic change after the war, when the building of railroads, the 
abolition of slavery, and the development of agriculture in the 
new North-west temporarily endangered the future of the city." 
The opening of new lines of railroads, and her connection 
with thirty-two navigable rivers, brings the Eastern coal-field, 
which covers one-fourth of the State's area, so near Louisville 
that it has had the effect of making coal for fuel cheaper here 
than anywhere else in the country. Coexistent with these coal- 
fields are forests of the finest timbe'r known to the market. The 
virgin forest of Eastern Kentucky covers ten thousand square 
miles, and the Southern and Western forests are equally val- 
uable and extensive. Louisville is now the best and cheapest 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 219 

hard-wood lumber market in the world, and in addition is the 
natural gateway to the celebrated Blue Grass region. 

An account of the city of I/Ouisville, however short, would 
be incomplete without at least a mention of its beautiful Pub- 
lic Library, containing more than 40,000 volumes, its educa- 
tional institutions, and its numerous public and religious chari- 
ties. There are four well-known medical institutions, the 
Kentucky Institutions for the white and colored blind, with the 
government printing establishment for the blind attached, and 
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The public alms- 
house cost $210,000; and a unique charity is the Masonic Wid- 
ows' and Orphans' Home, the single charity of the kind in the 
United States, and celebrated all over the world among Masons. 

Louisville has six hospitals, eleven orphanages, two homes 
for friendless women, a home for old ladies, and a central organ- 
ized charity association ; also the best training-school for nurses 
in the country, with every facility and all expenses paid. 

The city is also justly celebrated for its beautiful churches and 
Cave Hill Cemetery, of which the location is unrivaled. 

Main Street still contains evidences of the original character 
of the city in some of the old business houses, and the river 
front, now in a continual turmoil of business and traffic, is the 
oldest quarter. 

From the wharves three bridges span the Ohio, connecting 
with Louisville the cities of New Albany and Jeffersonville, 
Indiana, and opening the way for northern travel and traffic to 
the farther South through this thriving city. The one called 
the "Short Route," crossing the river below the Falls, con- 
nects the suburb of Portland with New Albany, Indiana, and 
is considered an engineering marvel. " Its lower end connects 



220 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

with the Kentucky and Indiana steel cantilever bridge. This 
beautiful structure, which cost $1,500,000, was "begun in 1882, 
and completed in 1886. Its length is 2,453 feet, exclusive of the 
approaches, which, on the Kentucky side, are very picturesque 
and extensive. There are 9 piers, 7 of which are of limestone 
masonry, and 2 are cone-shaped iron cylinders, made of boiler- 
iron five-eighths of an inch thick, resting upon the bed-rock, 
and fitted with brick and concrete. The average height of the 
piers is 170 feet. The masonry of these piers is regarded by 
engineers as the most handsome and substantial ever placed in 
position for a bridge on the continent. The aggregate masonry 
contains 13,600 cubic j^ards of stone. The length of approaches 
on the Indiana side is 781 feet, and on the Kentucky side 3,990 
feet. The bridge contains 2,414,261 pounds of steel and 3,625,000 
pounds of wrought iron. It affords accommodation for railway, 
carriage, street-car, and foot traffic. 

New Albany and Jeifersonville are practically a part of Louis- 
ville. New Albany is the county-seat of Floyd County. It is lo- 
cated in the center of the Ohio valley, three miles below the Falls 
of the Ohio River, opposite the city of Louisville, Kentucky, in 
latitude 38° 18' north, and longitude 8° 49' west. It is laid out 
upon an elevated plateau, upon two benches or plains, one twenty 
feet higher than the other, and sweeping northward and west- 
ward to a range of hills, that bear from the Indians the poetic 
name of the " Silver Hills," and which are from three hundred to 
five hundred feet in height. These hills, in the vicintity of the 
city, are being covered with charming suburban residences, many 
of them of beautiful architecture in design and adornment. The 
city was laid out in 181 3 by Joel, Abner, and Nathaniel Scribner, 
the original plat embracing but eight hundred and twenty-six 



AFLOAT ON THE RU'ER. 22 i 

acres, the land being entered at the government land-office at Vin- 
cennes, when that town was the capital of the Territory of Indiana, 
and purchased b}- the Scribners. The lots were disposed of by 
public auction on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of November, 
1813, and the proprietors of the town stipulated that "one-fourth 
part of each payment upon lots sold shall be paid into the hands 
of trustees, to be chosen by the purchasers, until such payments 
shall amount to $5,000, the interest of which is to be applied to 
the support of schools in the town for the use of its inhabitants 
forever." New Albany was incorporated as a cit}' in Jul}', 1839, 
having a population of four thousand two hundred. 

From the river, Louisville, with its pretty suburbs. Park- 
land, Clifton, " The Highlands," Anchorage, and Pewee Valley, 
makes a striking picture, supplemented by the famous Indiana 
"Knobs," which cross the Ohio below New Albany. 

Clarksville, Indiana, evidently the site of an Indian village, 
and Shippenport, Kentucky (Shippingport), incorporated in 
1785 as Canipbelltown, are both swallowed up in the growth of 
Louisville, and long ago incorporated with the city. Shippen- 
port in 18 15 was made of importance by the French, who erected 
there an enormous flouring-mill, which now stands, converted 
into a cement-factor3^ 

The Louisville and Portland Canal "was opened in 1831, and 
was the first great engineering work in the United States ; it 
proved eventually too small to accommodate all the craft on 
the Ohio, and the work of deepening and widening it was begun 
in i860. The improvement was continued through the war up 
to 1866, when it ceased for lack of appropriations. In 1868 
Congress voted $300,000 for resuming the abandoned work, and 
followed it by $300,000 more in 1869, and $300,000 in 1871, 



22^ THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

and gave $100,000 in 1873. Having thus expended such large 
sums, the next natural step was for the government to assume 
entire charge of the canal, which was accomplished in 1874 by 
the United States assuming the payment of outstanding bonds. 
From the date of the transfer, all forms of toll charges were 
abolished, and to this fact the waning powers of river transpor- 
tation owe whatever vitality remains at the present time. 

"Under government auspices and direction the task of com- 
pleting the enlargement of the canal has not onl}^ been carried 
to completion, but a new project is now under way to successful 
accomplishment b}' which a secure and ample harbor will be 
afforded against the perils of moving ice in the colder seasons, 
for those large fleets of coal-tows that arrive from Pittsburgh 
with high stages of water. All the propert}^ is under respon- 
sible supervision by officers of the government, and the canal 
proper, with the improvements projected, will long remain as 
sightly memorials of a government devoted to the interests of 
inter-State commerce." 

Below the Falls, near the village of Clarksville, there is a 
strong whirlpool through which, however, steamers can pass 
without danger. Perhaps the Ohio River is more beautiful at 
this point than anywdiere from Pittsburgh to Cairo, broken at 
every mile with small islands, and on both sides shut in- b}' 
long ranges of hills changing in shape with every turn and 
bend of the rippling water. The small towns of West Point and 
Brandenburg, Kentucky, and Mauckport and I^eaven worth, 
Indiana, in the vicinity of the Wyandot Cave, may be men- 
tioned ; then Alton, Indiana ; Concordia, Kentucky ; Rome, In- 
diana; and Stephensport, with Hawesville, Kentucky, opposite 
Cannelton, where there is drab and reddish sandstone, that 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 223 

is useful for subterranean and subaqueous work, such as foun- 
dation walls and bridge piers and abutments ; and Tell Cit}', 
Indiana ; Lewisport, Kentucky ; Grand View and Rockport, 
Indiana; and 149 miles below Louisville is Owensboro, Ken- 
tucky, the county-seat of Daviess County. 

One hundred and eighty-three miles below Louisville we 
reach Evansville, Indiana, situated on a high bluff, always 
above high-water mark. It is also situated at the head of 
low-water navigation, midway between the Falls of the Ohio 
and its mouth. It is nine miles below the mouth of Green 
River, which drains that marvelously rich valley ; 40 miles above 
the Wabash River, a noble tributary of the Ohio, flowing through 
the most fruitful grain-producing country in the West ; it is 140 
miles above the mouth of the Cumberland, and 150 miles above 
the mouth of the Tennessee, the two magnificent streams that 
form the water-way of the iron and coal regions of Tennessee 
and Alabama. 

Evansville is now, and has always been, the entrepot for all 
these rivers, her steamboat lines having grown in number and 
wealth until they have practicalh^ a monopoly of the entire car- 
rying trade of these streams. 

Evansville was named for General Robert M. Evans, born in 
Virginia in 1783, and died in 1844. He was an aid-de-camp of 
General Harrison, and led a portion of his brigade in the famous 
battle of Tippecanoe. Its large temperance hall was built mainly 
at the suggestion of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Selita Evans, in 
the town that bears his name. 

A mile below Evansville is Lamasco, and twelve miles below is 
Henderson, Kentucky, which is said to be the richest town 
of its size in the country. A magnificent railroad bridge spans 



224 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

the Ohio River at Henderson, being the longest that crosses the 
river, and having cost $2,000,000. 

The Kentucky shore now becomes ver}^ bare except for in- 
numerable small landings. On the Indiana shore, after West 
Franklin, comes the town of Mount Vernon. Then the river is 
everywhere broken by little islands; and twelve miles below 
Uniontown the Wabash divides the State of Indiana from Illi- 
nois. Raleigh is opposite. 

Shawneetown, an old site and a prosperous town, follows in 
Illinois ; Caseyville and Weston, in Kentucky ; 860 miles below 
Pittsburgh is the famous Cave in Rock, Illinois, noted for its 
great natural beauty, and as wild a spot as there is on the whole 
Ohio River. For years it was the rendezvous of a daring gang 
of outlaws, known as Murrell's men. 

Separated by onl}^ two or three miles from each other are 
EMzabethtown, Rose Clare, and Golconda, Illinois ; and a little 
above Smithland, Kentuck}', the Cumberland River empties into 
the Ohio. Paducah, twelve miles below, is at the mouth of 
the Tenr ^ssee River. Below Paducah there are the towns of 
Brooklyn, Belgrade, Metropolis, Caledonia, and Mound City, 
Illinois, a city of "great expectations," which have never 3^et 
been realized. Its situation is most favorable for manufac- 
turing, and the deep water from here all the way down to 
Cairo makes it the best winter harbor for vessels in Western 
waters. The prosperity or deca}^ of the city — its destiny, in 
fact — is bound up in that of Cairo. It was an important naval 
station during the w^ar. 

Thus approaching the city of Cairo, Illinois, one can not 
fail to realize its wonderful position at the junction of the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Though in 1842 only 60 of the 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER, 



225 



2,000 enterprising people were left, on account of financial 
disaster, who in 
1 84 1 came here 
to found a town, 
yet the active, 
prosperous city of 
to-day shows no 
trace of any ill- 
fortune. From a 
first glance one 
would suppose r; 
the situation un- '^ 
safe, on account of ^ 
the fr e qu en t y 
floods of the two 
rivers; but exam- 
ination shows the 
city to be w^ell 
guarded by im- 
mense levees, 
which are only 
needed to protect 
it from overflow 
during one or two 
months in the 
year ; during the 
remaining ten or 
eleven it is far 
above the level of 
the waters, and the system of drainage is perfect. Cairo is the 
gateway to the entire South. 




226 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

No richer soil than that of Cairo and Alexander County can 
be found anywhere. The products of the North, the South, 
the East, and the West are produced at their very doors. Corn, 
that great Northern product, is produced more abundantly here 
than anywhere else in the countr5^ The flour manufactured 
from the white winter wheat commands the highest price in the 
markets of the world. Oats are produced with profit everywhere 
here, while sorghum-cane, Irish and sweet potatoes, and all or- 
dinary farm products grow in the greatest profusion. Western 
Kentucky is admirably adapted to the growth of tobacco, while 
it is raised abundantly in Southern Illinois, especially in Will- 
iamson County, and also in South-east Missouri. Fields of 
growing cotton, that great Southern staple, may be seen bloom- 
ing every year within thirty miles of the city, in South-east Mis- 
souri. Clover seems to be indigenous in all this part of the 
country, and its production, both for hay and for the seed, is 
increasing rapidly. 

All the uplands of Southern Illinois, Western Kentucky, 
and South-eastern Missouri are pre-eminently adapted to the 
raising of fruits and vegetables. Large fields are devoted to 
pie-plant and tomatoes. Strawberry-fields, ranging in size from 
one to forty acres, are found here. The crop is never a failure, 
and is generally profitable. Raspberries, blackberries, and all the 
smaller fruits grow luxuriantly. The crop of blackberries, which 
grow wild in the woods in all this part of the country, is beyond 
measure. A plain statement of the facts would seem almost 
incredible. 

The culture of grapes upon the hillsides of Pulaski County 
is a growing industry, and is found to be very profitable. Apples 
and pears are produced for mar-' "\ wit' rofit, while peaches 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 227 

are successfully raised about thirteen to fourteen years out of 
twenty. The demand for peaches is such that an orchard bear- 
ing a good peach-crop once in three years is a valuable invest- 
ment. Just across the river, in Missouri, in the counties of 
Mississippi and Scott, there is a large area of country, embrac- 
ing many thousands of acres of the finest land, which seems 
especially adapted to the raising of watermelons. 

In seasons of great plenty, fruit here frequently rots on the 
ground, when, as often happens, the market is overcrowded, as 
Cairo is the center of the best fruit-growing region between New 
Jersey and Southern California. 

It is said by experts that Cairo is the most convenient 
point in the country for the manufacture of iron and steel. A 
mixture of ores is always necessary for this purpose, and the 
cost of transportation, an important item ; and nowhere can coal 
limestone, and coke be brought together so cheaply as at Cairo. 
Fine Bessemer steel could be produced here at less cost than at 
any other point in the United States. These facts were recog- 
nized by a Pittsburgh iron king, but he died before the erection 
of his contemplated iron-works here could be carried out, and it 
remains for some one else to execute his unfinished plans. 

We have now floated the entire length of this wonderful 
river. Touching its commercial and industrial importance to the 
Republic, the following cutting may not be inappropriate : " The 
seven States lying contiguous to the Ohio River, whose resources 
make up the vast wealth of the Ohio Valley, have within half a 
miUion of the population of the Atlantic States. The tonnage 
and commerce of the Ohio River is equal in value to the im- 
port and export tonnage of the entire Atlantic sea-board. The 
Ohio River vStates have pp' internal revenue taxes over 



228 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

$100,000,000 since 1861, and j^et millions are spent on im- 
provements along the sea-coast, where onl}- hundreds are spent 
in improving the Ohio River," 

Before our last word is written, we wish to say to the 
reader who has come with us thus far, that the unsketched 
Ohio, which we have not been able to present to you " in 
its very habit as it lives," is as charming and attractive as 
are many of the pictured pages we have laid before 3^ou. Some 
of the un-illustrated rivers — for the affluents that feed it are a 
part of itself — have not the grandeur, nor the weird fascination 
of the mountain views of its Allegheny-born streams ; 3'et there 
is nothing more unique in lowland, sylvan scenery than the lux- 
uriant vegetation which covers the valleys of the Muskingum, 
the Hocking, the Scioto, the Miamis, and the Wabash Rivers. 
Above the rich bottom-lands rise low, rounded hills, that skirt 
the winding shores in a panoramic succession of changing vistas. 
The freshness and tenderness, the variety of scenery thus given 
to the long river-reaches, mocks the skill of the wTiter, while 
it yet courts the pencil of the artist. 

And now for that "last word " which awaits the saying, and 
which is somewhat difficult to say. It is addressed to the 
dwellers by the RivER ; and to those who live upon, and gather 
their gains from its waters. 

It was not without reason that the illustrations selected for 
this book were drawn chiefly from the mountain regions "Where 
THE River is Born," and from the forest uplands, where, in the 
deep, cool, shaded pools, the pure life-giving and life-conserving 
waters are collected. 

The pictured exhibit we have herein given of the unspoiled 
river, while it lingers in the thickly wooded retreats of the 



AFLOAT ON THE RIVER. 229 

mountain glens, is of itself a plea for the preservation of its 
purity in the thousand-mile course it runs through the lowlands. 
If the lovers of the Ohio do not defend it from the evils civil- 
ization has begun to fasten, and will fasten upon it a hundred 
years from now, the beautiful valley of the " Deep Shining River " 
will be the valley of the shadow of Death.''' 

Nature, with her eternal resistance to man's misdoing, is 
constantly striving to free the river. The floods, with all theii 
distructiveness, are not altogether evil besoms. Their rapid action 
has, time and again, started the sluggish currents between neigh- 
boring islands, and forced the quick motion of living waters into 
the forgotten by-paths of the stream. The Steamboats also 
create a certain activity which assists in the release of obstruc- 
tions ; and the RivKR Commission has been of immense use in 
keeping the channels open. But the factor which could do most, 
and which is doing least, is Public Opinion. Let that giant 
shoulder the cause of the river, and sanitary science will smil- 
ingl}^ come forward with all the appliances of experience and 
skill, to forward the good work. 

The retired steamboatmen, who are struggling to sustair 
the ennui of existence in the gloom-breeding grandeur of gilded 
salons (unlike, and not so heartsome as the " Ladies' Cabin "), 
should do something for the relief of the beautiful highway, of 
the waters, upon which they met benignant fortune. Their 
knowledge of the river, their experience of its moods, the con- 
crete wisdom, with its resultant use, which is the informing 



-'The reader is assured that this is not merely an aesthetic point, used to win the 
sympathy of the lovers of the beautiful, but a question of grave and material impor- 
tance to the dwellers in the towns and cities upon the River. Should it serve for 
another quarter of a century as a great open sewer for dead animals, and an unlimited 
number of sewer systems ; each lovely winding river-stretch will be a central curve 
from which malarial evolvents will be described, the locus of the centers of hun- 
dreds of deadly circles. 



230 



THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 




Thought of their collective accrescence, all warrant their fitness 
for the role of "advisory council" to the "River Legislators;" 
who now only add a " worse confounded confusion" to the hope- 
less entanglements of the "How Not To Do It" Bureau, of In- 
ternal Improvements at Washington. 

The Inter-state Law did awaken a rippling ebb and flow of. 
trade upon the river; and if the "Line" autocrats and the "Old- 
timers" will "pull together" the trade will swell into an "Ohio 
flood." For a well-ordered " Line " 
of "Passenger and Light Freight 
Steamers," running as Day-boats, con- 
nectihg at proper distances from Pitts- 
burgh to Cairo, would open the river 
to a new traveling public. Tourists, 
lovers of beautiful scenery, people 
who travel for pleasure and who take 
pleasure in travel, 
would seek the lux- 
urious motion and 
the lovely outlook, 
to be found under 
a canvas awning, 
in a reclining-chair, 
upon the "hurricane- 
deck " of a light- 
draught "side- wheel- 
er" in Mid-River. 




AFFEj^Pt^ 



APPENDIX A, No. I.— Page 42. 

The fact here admitted, that '' these people had lived rvUh La Salle for 
some months''' refutes the statement made immediately after by M. Galli- 
iiee, that "La Salle did not understand the Iroquois language." To accent 
properly the contradictory "fact" and "statement," an excerpt from the rec- 
ords is added. "If M. de la Salle had not preferred glory to gain, he had 
only to stay quietly in his fort and accumulate at least twenty-five thousand 
livres a year through the trade that he had drawn there. One can say with 
truth that he is the only man who could conduct the enterprise with which 
he has been charged. He is irreproachable in manners, discreet in his con- 
duct, and he maintains order among his people. . . . He understands 
civil, military, and naval architecture; he is a good agriculturist; he speaks 
or understands four or five of the Indian dialects, and has a great facility 
for acquiring languages ; he knows Indian customs and manners, and turns 
them as he will through his address and eloquence, as well as through their 
esteem for him. In his journeys he lives no better than his people, and is 
willing to suffer any hardship to encourage them, and there is reason to 
believe that with the protection of the ministries he will found colonies of 
more value to France than anv that have vet been established." 



APPENDIX A, No. II.— Page 53. ^ 

The original Ohio Company was organized to secure to the English the 
Ohio, aud to check the progress southward of the "New France," appar- 
ently so firmly planted in Canada, by establishing trading-posts, protected 
by small forts west of the Alleghenies. In 1848, a petition to the crown 
was sent over, in which Thomas Lee, Lawrence and Augustus Washington, 
Robert Dinwiddle, surveyor-general for the Southern Colonies, and their 
associates, among whom was John Hanbury — an influential citizen, as well 



232 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

as a leading merchant of London — asked for a grant of " 500,000 acres of 
land between the Monongahela and the Kanawha, or on the northern mar- 
gin of the Ohio." In March, 1749, the king instructed the governor of Vir- 
ginia, to whom all this vast territory belonged, to make the grant. Before 
1748, when the Ohio Company was formed, there were no settlements west 
of the mountains. 

Hitherto the Indian trade had been, so far as the English were concerned, 
almost entirely confined to Western Pennsylvania. For, owing to the con- 
stant and relentless conflicts between the Indians and the early settlers in 
Kentucky, trade there meant the spoil of the victor. 

The original "Ohio Company" won favor with influential personages in 
England and in all the Southern Colonies, yet the constant troubles in 
which the whole country was involved retarded its progress. Its one great 
success was the promotion of emigration westward, and the stability of the 
settlements effected by its efforts; which, although interrupted by the con- 
dition of affairs, were constantly resumed, until the success of the Revo- 
lution rendered its existence unnecessary. 

As early as 1751 their agent visited the tribes upon the Great Miami 
River, and established a trading-post in one of the Twigtwee towns, belong- 
ing to the Miami Confederacy. The trail opened by this trade was from 
the Miami towns to the mouth of the Scioto, down the Ohio to the Falls, 
and back by way of the Kentucky River and the Cumberland Gap to Vir- 
ginia, which was then nmch the safest route, as the Southern Indians were 
less inimical to the English than were the Lake tribes. 

In 1760, nearly a century after the discovery of the Ohio by La vSalle, 
the Virginia " Ohio Company " resumed the surveys which were interrupted 
by the French and English war. 

One singular fact connected with the history of the time deserves 
notice: "Mr, Lawrence Washington, upon whom fell the chief management 
of the affairs of this company after the death of Mr. Lee, conceived the 
very plausible plan of inviting the " Pennsylvania Dutch " and their breth- 
ren from Germany to colonize this region. Their only objection was the 
parish taxes they would have to pay to support the Episcopal Church. Mr. 
Washington exerted himself to get this difficulty removed, but High Church 
Episcopacy was too strong for him, and so his scheme failed ; and a large 
portion of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia was kept open for a differ- 
ent race— mainly for Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. ... Mr. Washington, 



APPENDIX. 233 

in a letter to Mr. Hanbury, of London, wrote : * I conversed with all the 
Pennsyvania Dutch whom I met, and much recommended their settling. 
The chief reason against it was the payment of an English clergyman, 
whom few understood, while none made use of him. It has been my 
opinion, and I hope ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in 
regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country 
imposing them. ... As the ministry have thus far shown the true 
spirit of patriotism by encouraging the extending of our dominions in 
America, I doubt not, by an application, they would go still further and 
complete what they have begun, by procuring some kind of charter to pre- 
vent the residents on the Ohio and its branches from being subject to parish 
taxes. They all assured me that they might have from Germany any num- 
ber of settlers, could they but obtain their favorite exemption. I have 
promised to endeavor for it, and now do my utmost by this letter.' " 
(History of " The Old Redstone Presbytery.") 



APPENDIX A, No. III.— Page 64. 

In 1774 the first Continental Congress, in its second session, had ap- 
pointed commissioners to reoccupy Fort Pitt, and make treaties with the In- 
dians on behalf of the new government. The British had garrisons in the 
Lake forts. In Kentucky, Walker, Boone, Bullit, Kenton, Harrod, the jNIc- 
Afees,tlie Taylors, and others, were building stockades for defense against the 
Indians, who were supplied with arms and ammunition by the English. 

The master-spirit of the time, George Rogers Clark, of Albemarle 
County, Virginia, was in Philadelphia perfecting his plans for an offensive 
campaign into the Illinois country, which was to overawe the disaffected 
tribes, and win the wavering for the new government. On the 2d of June, 
1774) the British Parliament had passed an act which included in the bounds 
of Canada all the country between the Ohio River and the Lakes. It had 
already become evident that it was to be defended by their Indian aUies. 
Clark secured the cordial co-operation of Patrick Henry, then governor of 
Virginia. After many vexatious delays this force was finally assembled at 
Fort Pitt, and went down the Ohio, arriving at Louisville the 24th of June, 
1778, where he was joined by the Kentucky volunteers. On the 4tli of July 
they entered Kaskaskia after nightfall, and the first intimation the inliab- 

10 



234 T^^ PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

itants had of their presence was the startling cry, " If any one comes into 
the streets he shall be shot." 

On the 6th of February, 1778, France had recognized the independence 
of the United States. Clark heard the news on the Mississippi, and imme- 
diately began recruiting a company made up of the French settlers, and 
through them influenced the Indians to make common cause with the Long 
Knives and the French against the English. Through Grand Door, the 
leading chief of the Piankeshaws, this was accomplished. The news spread 
through the Illinois tribes. A council of representative chiefs met at 
Kahokia, and the alliance Clark proposed was ratified. 

Captain Helm, with a fighting contingent of 07ie soldier, represented the 
Americans at Vincennes when it was captured by a force of nearly five 
hundred British and Indians. Helm had ordered a "halt" when they were 
within hearing distance, and Colonel Hamilton stopped, but demanded the 
surrender of the garrison. "On what terms?" asked Helm. "The honors 
of war," replied Hamilton. And on those terms Vincennes was surrendered. 

A Spanish trader, named Francis Vigo, carried the news to Clark, who 
decided at once to recapture the place, and with sturdy determination and 
daring started across the flooded country in Februar}'. When they ap- 
proached the Wabash it took three days wading through the flooded shal- 
lows to gain the bank. Again there were flooded wastes to cross before 
reaching the town. 

On the 24th Hamilton surrendered Vincennes, and the entire North- 
west, except the Lake posts, was held by the Americans. A convoy of 
stores and provisions on its way from Detroit to the British at Vin- 
cennes was captured a few days after the surrender by Captain Helm, 
who was released at the capitulation. Hamilton was sent a prisoner to 
Virginia, where he was put in irons and treated with great severity for 
having ofl"ered the Indians premiums for "white scalps." 

Among the great leaders of the pioneers, the men who marched in the 
forefront of battle and of civilization, there is no more martial figure than 
that of George Rogers Clark. He was one of those "born fighters" who 
always reach their place in the world at the opportune moment. Because 
of his Virginian birth he was all the more the Kentuckian of the Ken- 
tuckians. In the logic of that time a war of defense was a war of extermi- 
nation, and raids into the Indian country were alwaj^s raids of reprisal. Such 
a fighter " cared little for gain, and still less for his hide ;" but Dame For- 



APPENDIX. 235 

tune, wlio loves iileli of liis mettle, kept putting into his hands the forsaken 
opportunities and the dropped threads of less lucky adventurers. But 
one man has ever stood above Clark in the estimation of the State and the 
hearts of the people; and to be second to that man was a patent of princely 
rank ; for Henry CIvAY was the flower of his race, and the uncrowned king 
of Kentucky. 

APPENDIX A, No. IV.— Page 65. 
SETTI.EMENT OF GAI.I.IPOI.IS. 

In 1 791 a French colony settled at Gallipolis. It was largely made up 
of the better middle class, anxious to escape the opening horrors of the 
French Revolution. They had purchased lands of " The Scioto Company," 
which Judge Hall says, in his "Statistics of the West," "was formed from, 
or was an offshoot of, the Ohio Company. 

" This company should not be confounded with the original ' Ohio Com- 
pany,' organized by the Washingtons, the Lees, other Maryland and Virginia 
gentlemen, and the Hanburys of London in, 1748. The original Ohio Com- 
pany, after having achieved the objects for which they were organized, the 
settlement of famihes upon the lands granted them by the king, and \the 
establishment of trading-posts and frontier-posts to protect these settlers 
from the French and the Indians,' had dissolved, and left the unoccupied 
lands free to all comers. The new ' Ohio Company,' organized b}' the Put- 
nams and other New Englanders in 17S6, took the title of the old company, 
without any distinguishing prefix to show that there was not the slightest 
connection or interest which warranted the revival of the name." 

"The Scioto Company," a branch of the new "Ohio Company," sent in 
June of 1788, one Joel Barlow to France to distribute "Proposals to Colo- 
nists," and sell them lands. 

We give a quotation from their " Proposals," which is, of itself, evidence 
of the intended fraud : 

"The climate is wholesome and delightful. Frost, even in winter, 
is almost entirely unknown. A river called, for its eminence, 'The Beau- 
tiful River,' abounds in excellent fish of vast size. There are noble for- 
ests, consisting of trees that spontaneously pj'OcUcce sugar, and a plant that 
yields ready-made candles. There is venison in plenty ; no dangerous 
wild animals, but swine which multiply from a pair to two hundred in 



236 THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 

two or three years without the trouble or expense of caring for them. 
There are no taxes and no military service." Howe, from whom we 
are quoting, continues: "A handsomely engraved colored map repre- 
sented the Scioto Company's tract as extending one hundred miles north 
of the mouth of the Kanawha. The lands of the Ohio Company to the 
east, next to which was the plat of an inhabited and cleared countrj', had 
upon the plat these words: ^ Sept rangs de niimicipa/ite acquis par des 
individues et occupes depids, 1786.' The map is as inaccurate in geog- 
raphy as it is fraudulent in its statements, for it represents the country 
as cleared and inhabited, when it was, in fact, a wilderness." 

The agent seems to have happily timed his enterprise. The darkest 
days of the French RevoluJ:ion were dawning, and doubtful of what would 
be the ending, people caught at this offer of an unoccupied paradise. Deeds 
were executed and recorded at Paris, and five hundred victims of the 
fraud— y^r there was neither grant nor tract, no Scioto Company legally 
existing — sailed for America, landing at Alexandria. There had been par- 
tial arrangements made for the reception of the emigrants from France 
before they left France. The first town planned, " Fair Haven," was so 
unfair a haven that it was submerged as soon it was laid out ; then " Colonel 
Rufus Putnam made a clearing and erected block-houses and cabins at 
Gallipolis, four miles below^ which was ten feet above high-water mark." 
Among the five hundred who came to Gallipolis there were twelve farmers 
and laborers. After six months the "company," which had agreed to 
supply provisions, stopped the supply. The only excuse given was that 
*' their agent in France had run away wdth the money paid for the lands." 

The winter was unusually severe, and the Kanawha and the Ohio 
were frozen over. The hunters brought no meat, and the colonists had 
no flour. The "Ohio Company" disavowed the sales, and the poor, de- 
luded French people learned from the Indians that the pretended "Scioto 
Company" was composed of "New Englanders who resided at a great 
distance from Gallipolis. Their names even were unknown to the French, 
who spoke no English." After suffering the extreme of want, many died 
of the privations and the heart-breaking disappointment. A swamp in the 
rear of the village caused a frightful epidemic, and, although a French 
lawyer living in Philadelphia finally got them a special grant from the 
government, ver}- few of the five hundred colonists brought from France 
settled on these lands. 



APPENDIX. 237 

APPENDIX A, No. V.— Page 182. 

The Iroquois Indians, who guided La Salle to the Falls of the OHIO, 
borrowed the name which they gave the RiVER from the Delaware lan- 
guage. In the varied dialects of the Confederation it was indifferently 
called Ohio or AUeghen)^, both signifying " fine," '' fair," or " shining river." 
In the Canadian Records it is given, " Ohio ou Olighisipon que veut dire 
en Iroquois et en Outaouac La Belle Riviere.'''' [Ohio or Olighisipon which, 
in the Iroquois and Ottawa language, means The Beautiful River.] How^- 
ever, in the different dialects, the name was so changed by elisions and 
additions that the original meaning is but imperfectl}^ preserved. 

Among the varied names we find " Ohiop:6chen," "Ohiophanne," 
" OhiopeckhannE ;" and by different translators the names are given as 
"Very White Stream," "Very Deep White River," "The Shining 
River," " The W^hite Shining River," and " The Deep Broken Shining 
River." The last gives a key to the meaning, as it w^as evidently sug- 
gested by the wind-capped undulations in the long river-reaches ; particu- 
larly is this noticeable in the wide stretches between low-lying shores, 
after the large Southern affluents have poured in the waters they collected in 
the Allegheny and Cumberland Mountains. Besides, the reader should not 
forget that, through its northern and southern affluents conjoined, the Ohio 
drains an area of 190,464 square miles. 



Before closing this last page the Editor wishes to give such brief 
mention as the space permits, to authors and authorities that have been 
particularly helpful in this work. First, to M. Margry; for only since 
the publication of the records in the French Archives could the outline 
history of the Discoverer and the Discovery of the Ohio be given as authen- 
tic beyond cavil. Before that valuable work was given to the public — 
Decouvertes et ^tablissements des Frangais dans P Amir i que Septentrionale, 
par Pierre Ma r^-ry— there were, here and there, brief allusions to the 
discoveries of La Sai,i,e in the writings of his contemporaries. But these 
w-ere so uncertain in character, and apparently so unadvised in statement, 
that they seemed rather broken echoes running through the centuries — 
vague sounds suggestive of some hidden history — than definite or con- 
nected data upon which to found belief. Next to these records of the 



23<S 



THE PICTURESQUE OHIO. 



Canadian Reports, nothing could have been more suggestive than Park- 
man's admirably written Histories. From Parkman long extracts have 
been given, which told the story of Pontiac so well that any change in the 
wording would have been a loss to the reader. In addition to what is bor- 
rowed from these two unique authorities, the Editor wishes to acknowl- 
edge an indebtedness for local coloring to Judge Hai,i^, Howe, and the 
legion of writers who have sketched the salient points of Western adven- 
tures and adventurers. 

C. M. C. 




MAY 18 1908 



